


who will i sing to

by theonlytwin



Series: now that you are dead [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Death, Kisses, M/M, PTSD, Pining, Pre-Canon, Slow Burn, Soldier Boys, Suicidal Ideation, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-18 16:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 24,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8168759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theonlytwin/pseuds/theonlytwin
Summary: Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte, sometimes represented as La Calavera Catrina, is believed to be a syncretic adaptation of Mictecacihuatl, Aztec queen of the Underworld, into Spanish Catholic beliefs. Her messenger is an owl. (Gabriel Reyes is obsessed with death for a good reason.)





	1. Los Angeles

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to thundara for beta reading! and valcries for fixing my shitty internet spanish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> w/ art commissioned from mrgamblinman.tumblr.com, pls go hit them up for heartbreaking faces

Growing up, Gabi listened to the classics.

Everyone in Orange County wanted to be B.I.G. or Snoop, or FlyLo, putting on the swagger, learning all the words, messing around with synths.

There was a teacher in middle school who set Ice Cube’s “Today Was A Good Day” as an investigative quest, making them figure out, with proof, what day it actually was - turned out to be January 20th, 1992, before his mother was even born - and his whole class observed the day every year after that, like it was a saint’s feast.

His mother would sing along to her shitty speakers, Selena, PTAF, Beyonce, _hold up, they don’t love you like I love you, slow down, they don’t love you like I love you,_ setting him on her hip and spinning him around, unless she was too tired from work at the factory, up until he was too big to lift. 

His grandfather, who lived in the front room, his knees non-functioning from a lifetime of bicycle couriering, spent days giving guitar lessons for money on the net - beaming out to subscribers around the world. He gave them to Gabi for free, teaching him the mariachi torch songs and songs of revolution.

He would play a tune, fingers moving faster than eyes could follow, then once more, slowly, then hand it to Gabi, and wait.

The trick, it turns out, is to let your body be in charge. It’s smarter than your brain, figures things out before you do. 

He got so good that when his mother passed, his grandfather let him play Las Golodrinas at the funeral.

 

***

Catrina Reyes had died slow, of a stomach cancer they couldn’t afford treatment for. Gabi had watched her go.

 _Santa Muerte,_ his grandfather said, _she’ll take care of your mother. We called her Catrina so that Muerte would know her as one of her own. She takes care of everyone, eventually._

Gabi had spent more nights than he can easily count wondering if he should just speed it up - give Santa Muerte, Catrina, a helping hand, put an end to the pain. 

He didn't do it, in the end - she died in her bed, on a Sunday, around two in the afternoon, sunlight streaming in, while Gabi tried to do his math homework in the corner. 

The battery on his tablet went flat, and he got up to look for a charger and realised she wasn’t breathing.

He didn’t finish his homework.

***

After he played Las Golodrinas, people kept congratulating him, telling him he was a brave boy, that she would have been proud.

Maybe, he thinks. Maybe she would have been proud of him if he had been braver.

***

***

Gabi had skipped a lot of school while Catrina was sick - riding his bike around, slinging synthetic dope, DMT and fake IDs run off a 3D printer for the Cyprus Street crew, to put food on the table, to try and pay off some of the hospital debts.

 _You make your bones, and you might move up,_ Ari told him. Gabi nodded, but everyone knew Cyprus Street only controlled about 10 blocks. There wasn’t much to move up to.

 _You don’t have to keep doing this,_ his grandfather said when Gabi handed him a stack of cash three days after they cremated Catrina. _There’s no future in it. You’re smarter than that, should be looking at a career. You can do better than your abuelito._

Gabi nodded again, and pulled up one of the recruitment sites the schoolnet always linked to. A career. Plenty of space to move up. 

***

He flattens his voice in basic. He drops all the Spanish, all the slang, all the things that marked him as different. He shaves his hair off.

***

He doesn’t get to bring his guitar to Syria, but he kills his first man there and it turns out not to be so different. You let your body be in charge, because it’s smarter than you, wants to survive more than your brain does. Turns out not to be about bravery at all.

He kills four people in as many months, watches one of his cohort die, and they give him a promotion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in the future, orange county is even more densely populated than it is now. 
> 
> las golodrinas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh4MzFupw90) is a very popular song at mexican funerals. it's about being unable to return home.


	2. Induction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you should be able to mouse over non-english phrases.

He first gets wind of SEP when there’s some skinny colonel in the corner of Parson’s office. 

Reyes had figured he was being asked in to talk about that promotion he’d been angling at, but this skinny colonel, who looks like the kind of guy who actually gets pleasure out of polishing buttons, is throwing him off. 

_The colonel is here to offer you a special opportunity, Reyes. An opportunity for advancement,_ she says.

 _Could we have the room, Colonel Parson?_ the skinny colonel asks. 

She glances between them, and stands. She’s mad about this, but is, somehow, outranked.

 _Sergeant Reyes, what do you know about genetics?_ he says, and Reyes thinks about his mother dying slowly on sheets he had washed and dried.

***

They’ll be stripped of rank during the program, but will leapfrog ahead if they make it through it. They’re at some mysterious high level of risk that means they’ll be paid at a higher rate for the duration. 

What clinches it for Reyes was the fact that Parson has no idea what the program is. 

He’d rather be on the inside of a thing like that, rather than ignorant.

***

When he first sees Jack Morrison, Reyes thinks: pretty. 

The kind of pretty around which a halo forms - like iron filings around a magnet. People are attracted to Jack Morrison, want to be near him, want to impress him - just because of his proportions, his eyes, the way he holds himself and shakes hands and listens. Reyes figures this out in the first split second, watching the room move around Jack Morrison, all of nineteen and untested and pretty. 

_Reyes, Jack Morrison will be your partner in the program. Morrison doesn’t have a lot of combat experience, but he’s been showing some enormous potential,_ the colonel says, and Morrison ducks his head, flushes, sticks out his hand.

Pretty is dangerous, Reyes knows, shaking his hand. Pretty and blond and white. White boys are dangerous. The whole world is in love with white boys, has been since they colonised every fucking thing. Pretty white boys get shit handed to them that boys who look like Gabriel Reyes have to bow and scrape and suck dick to get. 

_I’m aware of your service record, Sergeant Reyes,_ Morrison tells him, earnest. _It’s an honour to work with you._

 _No rank in the SEP,_ says the colonel. _You’re all just soldiers, now._

 _Yes, sir._ The colonel smiles at him. Probably everyone smiles at him all the time. 

Jack Morrison isn’t going to get shit from Gabriel Reyes. He’s going to have to earn everything he gets. 

***

Jack Morrison is six years younger than Reyes, more innocent than Reyes ever was, soft and in a lot of ways awkward, but he works hard, which is something Reyes didn’t expect. He works hard, shoots straight, takes orders and has a decent tactical mind behind his pretty face.

And goddamn if the boy can’t fight. 

_I wrestled in high school. And boxed._

_Figured you were a quarterback,_ Reyes tells him. 

_People always think that. Boxing, wrestling. I played some golf._

_Just when I think you can’t get whiter,_ Reyes says, then elbows him in the throat, rolls them, so now Morrison is the one who’s pinned. _You play the game of wrinkly old rich guys._

 _Plenty of open space in Indiana,_ Morrison wheezes. _Plenty of empty nights._

After tapping out, Morrison cocks his head. _What did you play?_

 _Guitar,_ Reyes tells him, and walks away.

***

They get pumped full of - something. Steroids, but something else. Something to do with genetics, maybe.

Reyes wakes up sweating, wakes up freezing, wakes up with a raging hard on, wakes up from dreams where he’s been stripped of his flesh, where he is a skeleton draped in shadows, where he unhinges his jaw and swallows stars.

Half of SEP washes out due to bad reactions. The rest of them bulk out, get faster, stronger, quicker. 

***

 _He said - did he ask you about genetics?_ Morrison asks, one breakfast. 

Everyone nods. There’s seven of them left.

 _I don’t know enough about it to say for certain,_ Morrison announces, _but we gotta have some kind of pre-disposition to this thing working out, right?_

 _Tell that to Glover. And Nguyen, and Youssef, and Martinez, and Downey._ Kim ticks them off on his fingers. 

_Tell that to all the people they tested this shit on before us,_ says Maginot. He’s got a point - Reyes remembers hearing about a clinic in San Francisco that used to pay the homeless to be guinea pigs for new designer drugs. 

_Yeah,_ Morrison flexes his arm, feeling around the injection site. _But there’s got to be something we have in common, that means we’re still here._

Reyes looks around. Five men, two women. Kim’s Korean-American, grew up in DC. Russo’s family is Italian and Portuguese, from New York. Maginot is a black guy from Georgia. Awray is the only other Latino - she’s from Florida, reminds him of the tomboys back in LA, but with more doubtful stories about alligators. Morrison and Northman, when they sit next to each other, look like they’re on a Nazi dream date, and are from Indiana and Idaho respectively. There was no pattern to the people who washed out either.

 _We’re photogenic,_ says Awray. _We all got a genetic pre-disposition to being good looking._ She grabs Kim’s face. _Look at these fucking cheekbones._ Kim bats her away. _Northman, you can’t tell me you weren’t in at least one Miss Idaho competition._

_I was not,_ says Northman, who’s got the kind of poker face all white women in the military seem to cultivate.

 _Maginot’s basically an underwear model,_ Awray continues, and Maginot nods. _Reyes has the ass of an angel, the thighs of Atlas and the mouth of a porn star._

 _Never describe me again,_ says Reyes, and she just grins. 

_Morrison has that whole - situation._

_What situation?_

_Shut up, man, she’s gonna say something nice about me,_ says Russo.

Awray steeples her fingers and looks carefully at him. _Russo, you look like the non-threatening yet soulful member of a boyband._

_Lame. I want to be the bad boy who goes on to have a solo career._

_Nah, that’s me,_ says Kim. _Or Reyes maybe._

Morrison sits there, looking down at his arm.

***

The next time they’re in the medbay, him and Morrison and Awray and a black nurse - the doctors and nurses don’t wear name tags in SEP - when they’re getting the next jabs that’re going to fuck them up for five or six days, Morrison says _Are these different to the last ones?_

The nurse looks at him. _Can’t answer that, soldier._ She slides the needle into his arm, presses the plunger down.

 _Did you think that was going to work, mongo?_ Awray shakes her head.

 _Worth a try._ He glances at Reyes. _What’d she call me?_

Reyes levels a look at him. _Why are you asking me?_

Morrison opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

_I called you a dumbass, pendaho._

_That second time she called you a pubic hair,_ says the nurse.

Morrison is visibly torn - does he try to get in on the joke? Does he try to defend himself? Does he let it slide? This is the most entertaining thing to happen in the medbay since that one nurse couldn’t find Maginot’s vein.

 _¿Eres cubana? ¿Dominicana?_ Awray asks.

The nurse ticks a tiny corner of a smile. _Can’t answer that, soldier._

***

They spend the next few days throwing up.

They do not see that nurse again.

Morrison doesn’t ask any more questions. Awray punches him in the arm anyway. 

The next three nurses are white. Reyes doesn’t want to read into that, but it’s hard not to.


	3. Training

They’re getting trained hard, in obstacle courses, combat simulations, testing new equipment, new chains of command within their group.

He can’t sleep, and neither can Morrison. 

They keep running into each other in the middle of the night, in the mess hall, or gym, or common room. 

He offers to spot Reyes, races him around the indoor track, plugs his drive full of old Star Trek episodes into the common room screen. 

_I know it’s goofy,_ Morrison tells him, _but it’s good. It’s so - optimistic, about everything._

 _Too optimistic,_ says Reyes.

_Yeah, I mean, we’re not out of the solar system yet -_

_I’m not talking about space - how many lady commanders you see around? How much international teamwork have we got? Even in this show, most of the people in charge are white guys._

_It could happen._ Morrison shrugs. _It could happen soon._

Reyes side eyes him. That’s the kind of thing someone who looks like Captain fucking Kirk would say. 

***

Reyes can beat him on the mat slightly more than half the time. Morrison is strong, and stubborn, but predictable, with a lot of tells. 

_You can’t pull all your punches_ , Reyes tells him. _You can’t trust that the other guy’s going to pull them too._

 _Okay, Reyes,_ Morrison says, and in about thirty seconds, splits his lip. 

_Are you - oh god, I’m so sorry,_ Morrison pulls back, looking at his hands. 

_You can’t apologise for every little thing_ , Reyes tells him, blood filling his mouth.

_Okay, Reyes. Can I - I’m not apologising but can I take you to the medbay, or something?_

Reyes swipes the blood away - there’s a lot. _I’m only going so I don’t biohazard this place up,_ Reyes says. _And I can find my own way, boy scout._

_Well, I’d better get a bandage for my hand. You got sharp teeth, Reyes._

_Uh-huh_. Reyes pulls off his shirt and uses it to catch the blood running down his chin. _You can’t always get what you want, Morrison._

 _I don’t,_ says Morrison, confused.

 _Uh-huh,_ says Reyes again.

***

It heals over, like it's a year old, in an half hour. 

_Well, shit,_ says Awray.

***

Morrison doesn’t always get his way in the field, Reyes makes damn sure of that. He’s creative, but prone to rushing, and half his plays rely way too much on luck, best case scenarios. He and Maginot, who is pragmatic to a fault, would butt heads if they weren’t both so polite. Instead, they each say their piece, and wait. Russo has no patience, and will back whichever plan gets it done faster. Kim stress smiles, which is the only time anyone sees him smile, but he’s level as anything, good at McGuyvering busted equipment. Northman never misses, never raises her voice, but hums when she's pointing her gun - not tunes, just a near constant, one tone hum. Awray swears frequently, but in a friendly way, and likes driving things into other things.

They’re a good team. They listen to him. Reyes has never been on a team without at least one or two duds, so it’s - nice.

***

 _I hate the fucking running,_ says Kim one evening. _I only signed up for the free engineering degree. No one told me about all the running._

 _Yeah, I can get behind the shooting, and the getting shot at, and the mysterious medical experiments,_ says Awray, _but the running clinches it! I’m outta here!_

 _Engineering is a good gig,_ says Maginot. _That was my track too._

 _I wanted a military career,_ says Northman. _Half my family are in service._

 _I was bored and poor,_ says Awray. _What about you guys?_

 _There are five kids in my family,_ says Russo. _Ma's in jail. Where the fuck else was I going?_

_Career,_ says Reyes. _War’s never over._

 _Wanted to pay my way through a polisci degree,_ says Morrison. 

_What the hell were you gonna do with a polisci degree?_ asks Russo.

_Go home, get into local politics. Fix up my town. Maybe become mayor in a couple years._

_The boy mayor of Indiana!_ says Russo. _I’d vote for you._

 _What’s wrong with your town?_ asks Maginot.

 _Poverty. Alcoholism. High suicide rate._ Morrison shrugs. Maginot nods. 

_Aw, boy mayor. Yours might be the most depressing._

_Yeah, well._ He shrugs again. _Plus, pretty much every band in every bar had an accordion in._

 _Well, that’s issue one for Mayor Morrison,_ Awray says. _Sell all the accordions, and buy everyone some counselling._

***

They watch The Wire, which Russo has on a drive.

 _Can’t believe you haven’t seen it,_ Russo says. _Everyone’s seen The Wire. The Wire was both of the President Obamas’ favourite show._

 _Even Northman’s seen The Wire, and she’s actually whiter than you. Remember, when we measured against mayonnaise?_ Awray pinches his arm.

 _Yeah, I remember. Net reception kinda sucked, growing up. I pretty much only watched things my parents had,_ Morrison shrugs. _Which was just sci-fi and nature documentaries._

 _This explains so much,_ says Russo. _I’m watching this with you now. The Wire marathon, I’m gonna get my Orioles cap._

 _You watching The Wire?_ says Maginot. _My brother was named Omar because of The Wire._

 _Omar’s the hero?_ asks Morrison.

Maginot stares at Reyes, eyes very wide. 

_Net reception was bad in Indiana, apparently._ Reyes wonders why he’s defending Morrison.

 _Is Omar the villain?_ Morrison asks slowly.

 _Oh you sweet summer child,_ says Awray. _Chico de oro , you sit your ass right down._

_What did you call me?_

***

At the end of season one, Morrison says, _Okay, I get it. There’s no hero._

 _Ding ding ding!_ says Russo.

 _But that’s kind of bleak - positive change is possible. I mean, look at Baltimore now!_ Morrison says with the confidence of someone who has never been to Baltimore.

 _The point is not Baltimore now,_ says Maginot. _The point is how long it took to get there. All the stuff that goes on underneath. There’s years of work and struggle and crime and suffering underneath every happy ending._

_And there’s no such thing as a happy ending. History says if things are happy now, they probably won’t be in a decade._ Awray stretches her arms. 

Morrison looks around at them, for support. _But -_ he shakes his head, frustrated. _That means there’s no point. I can’t think like that._

 _You don’t have to,_ says Maginot, without inflection. _But plenty of people do._

 _What is it you think they’re making us for?_ asks Reyes.

Morrison frowns. _To help._

There’s a moment of silence. Maginot widens his eyes at Reyes again. 

_Anyway!_ says Russo. _There’s like four more seasons, but I also have all of Rick & Morty._

 _Do you have the Community movie?_ asks Awray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I like the idea that because of ease of sharing, TV becomes the cultural touchstone moveis used to be. Also I didn’t realise this until after writing this bit, but apparently one of Reaper’s lines is “You come at the king, you best not miss”. Gabriel Reyes, with his trench coat and beanie and shotguns, and name that means king, thinks he is hilarious.)


	4. Ignition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which shit kicks off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mouse over Spanish for translations.

Factories around the world blow up. 

They go into combat against the Omnics, and Reyes hates them. He hates how they move, how they die without dying, how they can put themselves together again, so no matter how many times you kill them, they can come back. It’s an insult to death. 

They’re a good team, though. They know each other’s habits, moves, reaction times, they have each other’s backs. They all have combat experience, except Morrison, and Morrison does well, which is not as annoying as Reyes thought it would be. 

The cameras love him. Reyes had known, had assumed, that SEP was as much about PR as it was about results, but having Morrison’s face splashed across screens and posters worldwide, is weird.

He still shoots straight, though. He still follows orders. He does well.

***

He does well up until he gets shot trying to save some civilians, because of course he does. 

Reyes blasts the bastion, hauls Morrison out from under its bulk, watches blood bubble from his guts. 

_Reyes,_ mutters Morrison, _I’m sorry._ He reaches up, gets blood on Reyes’ face, warm and sticky.

 _What’re you sorry for?_ He presses gauze to Morrison’s stomach - he could be fine. They heal fast, and it’s just his gut, so he could be fine. If he’s not, he’s not the first soldier Reyes has seen die, and he’s not likely to be the last. He radios for support. Morrison passes out with Reyes’ hands holding him together.

***

He stands under the shower stream with blood running off him, trying to figure out what Morrison was sorry for. 

People like Morrison, Reyes had assumed, are either sorry for everything or nothing, and it ends up meaning nothing either way. But Morrison had looked at him, and said his name, with a little hitch in his breath, like it was important.

His dick is hard. This happens, sometimes, after combat, but it’s usually mindless. 

This time, he pulls himself off thinking about Morrison’s blue eyes, Morrison’s blood.

***

He bows his head in the empty locker room, and mutters to himself, _Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte, inclino antes de ti y te pido que seas guardiana y protectora de mi y lo mío en la vida y después de ella._

***

Morrison gets better, of course.

He thanks Reyes, and Reyes tells him it’s what anyone would have done. 

_What were you sorry about?_ he asks. _You said you were sorry._

 _Don’t know,_ says Morrison. _I don’t remember. Sorry for getting shot, probably._

Reyes doesn’t believe him, but can’t say why.

***

Reyes used to look down on guys who lost their minds over getting their dick wet. He’s fucked a couple of times - men, women - on R&R, but that was like - rote. What you’re meant to do. Ticking a box, almost. He’s never been desperate for it, like nearly everyone seems to be. He’s never paid for it, because there are better things to spend money on. 

He’s not desperate for it now, either. He’s not losing his mind now. He is jerking off more often, and always to the same image - Jack Morrison, gasping. 

It’s probably fucked up, but he shoots evil robots for a living. Some space monkeys had a revolution on the moon. Life is fucked up. What Gabriel Reyes thinks about when he comes isn’t that big of a deal. 

***

One morning, Awray flops down at breakfast, beaming. 

_What?_ asks Maginot. _The Marlins finally win a game?_

_Better!_

Kim sits down with an entire pot of coffee. _Her and Northman._ He pours himself a cup, chugs it. _All goddamn night._

Kim and Awray share a wall.

Russo high fives her.

Maginot squints. _All due respect, but - Miss Idaho?_

_Gather ye rosebuds, right, Reyes?_

Reyes bites into his toast with more force than necessary.

 _Good morning,_ Morrison says, sliding his tray onto the table.

 _Yeah it is,_ Awray gives him fingerguns. She jumps to her feet. _If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen._ She crosses the room to where Northman is pouring herself some juice. 

_What’s going on?_ Morrison asks. 

_Noisy sex,_ says Kim. _Fucking hours of it._

Morrison looks around the table, then at Awray presenting Northman some porridge like it’s not reconstituted out of powder. _Oh, Awray and - oh._

 _Hey, Morrison,_ says Russo, _I double dare you to tell them how fine you are with it._

 _Of course it’s fine,_ says Morrison, _why wouldn’t it be?_ and Maginot laughs.

Northman sits down, and looks at them. _If anyone tries to talk to me about my private life, I will break all your fingers._

 _Break everyone’s fingers, or all the fingers of the person who tries to -_ Russo starts.

 _Yes,_ she says, and starts eating.

Awray beams at them again.

***

They’re halfway up a mountain, waiting for a chopper. Morrison got his head dinged by some shrapnel, has a concussion, Kim has some broken ribs, Northman is watching her arm knit together, Reyes can feel his leg do the same, but things went pretty well.

 _Look at the moon,_ Morrison says. _Like the face of an owl._

 _Man, he’s scrambled,_ says Russo. It does look like an owl, though. White and wide, the shadow of the lunar base looking like the curve of a beak. The chopper looms against the night sky.

 _C’mon, Morrison_ , Reyes heaves him to his feet. 

_You can call me Jack_ , he says. _You saved my life that time._

 _Anyone would have, Jack,_ Reyes tells him. _We’re all heroes here, remember the press release?_

Jack smiles at him, still holding his forearm. _Gabriel. Means the strength of the Lord._

 _Scrambled_ , singsongs Russo, above the rising noise of their exit. 

***

 _You got religion?_ Reyes asks him, the next day. 

_Not really,_ Jack says. _My mother came out of a Mormon family as an agnostic. Dad didn’t talk about it. Why?_

_After you got knocked around the head you told me my name meant the strength of the Lord._

_Oh. I went through this whole thing in middle school where I figured out the meanings of all the names of kids in my class._ He shrugs. _There was a Gabriel, from a Catholic family. Mexican Catholic, big nativity in the yard every Christmas, Day of the Dead parties, seven kids, all named from the Bible._

_Didn’t know you had Latinos up in Indiana,_ Reyes says.

 _We’ve got hot sauce and everything, out in the cornfields,_ Jack replies. _Is your family religious?_

 _Sort of,_ Reyes says, because people get weirded out when you tell them the only saint your family’s ever prayed to is a skeleton in a dress. _But I was named for my father._

_Yeah? Gabriel Reyes Junior?_ Morrison grins a little.

 _He was never a Reyes,_ he says, and Jack looks like he’s going to apologise, so Reyes waves a hand. _How’s your head? Any more insights about the moon?_

 _What did I say about the moon?_ His forehead creases. He’s so fucking pretty.

_Something, I don’t know. Told me to call you Jack._

_Well, yeah, do that. If you like._

_I don’t need your permission to use your name, Jack_.

_Do I need your permission? Reyes?_

_Damn straight._

***

Reyes takes a few day’s leave to go home for Día de los Muertos, to lay marigolds and copal at a shrine for his mother. His grandfather looks on from the hoverchair Reyes bought with hazard pay. They play No Me Queda Más for her. He remembers all the words, even though he can’t hold a tune.

 _Should have played this one at the funeral_ , Gabi says, in Spanish. _She loves this one._

 _It’s too sad,_ his grandfather replies. 

Gabi laughs. _Yeah._

_Let me teach you the one I want at my funeral,_ his grandfather grins. _It was the first song I ever learned._ He strums a stupidly simple tune, sings a few bars.

 _Lito,_ Gabi shakes his head, _this song is terrible._

_Yes, but it’s about a man who never dies. It’s funny to play at a funeral._

_People think I have no sense of humour,_ Gabi says, _which is your fault._

_You think Santa Muerte doesn’t have a sense of humour? Then why is she always smiling? Anyway, this song is good because it doesn’t matter if you can’t sing._

Gabi shakes his head again.

***

When he goes back to base, Jack hangs around him for about six hours straight. 

_You can’t just leave your puppy here without instructions as to his care, socio._ Awray shakes her head at him when they’re bussing dinner trays. _Creo que no dormía._

_No es mi problema._

_¡Él habla!_ She raises her hand to her heart in an affectation of surprise.

He rolls his eyes. _You wanna pick a thing to bug me about?_

 _Do you guys wanna watch one of the Star Trek movies?_ Jack asks from the door, waving his jump drive. 

_The one with the whales?_ asks Kim. _I do love the one with the whales._

When they all pile onto the couches, Jack sits on the floor, not at Reyes’ feet, but pretty damn close.

Arway sticks her tongue out at him, makes puppy dog eyes. He flips her off.

***

 _Miss me?_ Reyes says when Jack finds him in the mess at 0200, sits right next to him despite the fact that every other seat is empty.

 _Yeah,_ says Jack, like it doesn’t matter, bumping their shoulders. _No one else calls me on my shit as often as you._

 _We’re partners. Besides, no one else is as smart as me,_ Reyes says, and bumps him back.

 _You’re in a good mood,_ Jack says. 

_Today I didn't even have to use my A.K._ Reyes tells him, and figures he’ll let Jack puzzle it out, since no one’s used an A.K. for about 20 years.

Jack smiles, and it’s like sunshine. _I got to say it was a good day._

 _Yo tenía una esperanza en el fondo de mi alma,_ his mother sang, _que un día te quedaras tú conmigo_. 

Reyes kisses him. He kisses Jack knowing that it will end badly, one way or the other. 

Jack kisses back, warm and soft and excited. 

This just means the bad ending will come later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the song Reyes' grandfather wants played at his funeral. It is terrible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07z3QCe5g-0
> 
> No Me Queda Más by Selena is about lost love. This, like Reyes' grandfather’s choice of funeral song, is very ironic.
> 
> Art by liripip.tumblr.com!!!


	5. Bedroom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some porn happens. also thank you to valcrie for fixing my bad internet spanish!

There’s a lot of reasons why he shouldn’t be fucking Jack Morrison, including but not limited to: though as part of the SEP he’s technically not a subordinate, Reyes has been commanding Morrison in the field, causing a possible conflict of interest, particularly if and when Reyes is promoted; they are in active combat and there’s no sign of the war ending, so neither of them need a distraction; he’s extremely white and from Indiana.

In the positive column: he’s real good at it. 

The first time, when it’s like 0230 because Jack Morrison kisses slow and sweet as caramel, and they’re in Jack’s room, which has a fucking photo of some cornfields on the wall in case he forgets he’s from Indiana, under the fluoro downlight of standard SEP accommodation, the first time Jack sucks his dick, it feels like he’s been training for years to do it. 

Jack slides to his knees, looks up as he unbuttons Reyes’ fly, big eyes and hair going in all directions, whispers _Is this okay?_

 _Take your shirt off,_ Reyes tells him, and Jack does, without a second’s hesitation. 

_Yeah,_ Reyes runs a thumb over Jack’s brow. Jack leans into it, brushes his lips against Reyes’ palm, sighs and swallows once before opening his mouth, sliding onto Reyes’ dick. 

He is real good.

He likes being told he’s good, which Reyes knew in the context of the field, but means something different in Jack Morrison’s room, when Reyes can watch his whole body turn red just by saying _That’s good, you’re so good, you’re so fucking good_. 

When he comes, and Jack swallows, gasps, pushes his face against Reyes’ stomach, it’s better than his fantasies, because now he gets to push Jack to the floor and kiss him, reach into his pants and find him hard, to pull him off fast, watch his chest heave and his blood pump. 

Jack laughs, quietly, on the floor of his room, covered in come. _Shoulda gotten into NWA a year ago._

 _If you told me you liked NWA a year ago, I would have punched you in the face, Jack._

_You hated me, huh?_ Jack smiles, dreamily. _I knew it, and I knew I’d get you to come around._

_Is that what they call this in Indiana?_

Jack rolls towards him, kisses him, laughs some more. 

Reyes still hates him, some. It’s hard not to.

***

Jack wants him to sleep there, which is so dumb Reyes doesn’t even tell him that. 

_I’m going to shower, and we aren’t going to tell anyone about it._

_Are you - is this okay? That we -_

This isn’t what it’s meant to be like. He’s meant to be defensive, or embarrassed, or joking it off. He’s not meant to be looking at Reyes, worried and beautiful.

 _Probably not,_ Reyes tells him, _but it happened. Maybe it’ll happen again. Maybe it won’t. You can’t always get what you want, Morrison._

 _Gabriel,_ Jack says, quiet. He catches Reyes’ hand, presses a kiss to his knuckles.

This is going to happen again, Reyes realises. This is probably going to keep happening until one of them dies. 

***

He gets out of Jack’s room at 0514, so it’s not even a surprise to run into Maginot in the hall. 

Maginot raises his eyebrows. 

Reyes squares his shoulders. 

_Is this stupidity new, or what?_ Maginot raises his hands, palms up. _I only ask so I can accurately settle up the book._

Reyes sighs. _Yeah, it’s new._

 _A’ight,_ Maginot nods. _You just earned me a bunch of chores off of Kim and Awray._

_What’d they bet on?_

_That you’d been banging all along._

_I’m - slightly smarter than that._

He folds his arms. _Whatever you gotta tell yourself, man._

Reyes runs a hand over his face.

The siren goes off, which means they’re being called into combat. Jack comes out of his room already dressed, which means he probably didn’t even get into bed. 

Maginot nods at him. Jack nods back. 

***

 _Where are we going?_ Kim asks as they’re suiting up.

Russo is the closest to the tablet, and he taps it. _LA,_ he frowns, _it’s a big one._

Morrison, Awray and Russo look at him. The rest of them know better. 

_Let’s get in the air,_ he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all I'm real sorry, but everything goes downhill from here.


	6. Los Angeles

Kim dies first. 

Half of LA burns down, civilian casualties end up at just under a million, there are Marines and Coast Guard and firefighters in bags, but Kim is the first member of SEP to die in combat. 

A bastion blows his head clean off.

Morrison cries. 

_We can - we have to -_ he looks back and forth, _we can’t -_

_He’s dead, soldier. We keep going._

This is, Reyes realises suddenly, the first death Jack Morrison has seen. Probably the first person he’s lost.

 _Let’s go, soldier._ Reyes catches him by the elbow, tugs him forward. Morrison staggers, gets his feet under him. _People to help._

Jack looks up at him, tears in his eyes and twenty years old. He nods. 

***

By sunset, the EMP payload is delivered, and the remaining Omnics have retreated. 

They’ve saved lives. 

(They’ve been caught on camera saving lives, which is, Reyes realises, later, a deciding factor of the future.)

***

Emiliano Reyes survived the attack. He weighed down his hover chair with blankets and bottles of water and went around the neighbourhood handing them out. 

He spent the whole night out there, inhaling smoke and fumes, talking to people. He goes home at sunrise, and plugs in his phone. There’s a missed call from Gabi, and Emiliano calls him back. 

_Lito,_ he says, his voice rough. 

_Gabi,_ Emiliano replies, and coughs. _You should come visit me if you’re in town._

By the time Gabi gets there, Emiliano has died. His lungs gave out. He was 68.

***

Still in his gear, Gabi rests a hand on his grandfather’s forehead, and says, _Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte, cuide su discípulo humilde, quien te amaba y te veneraba, quien vivió una buena vida a pesar de todo._

He swallows. His comm buzzes. _Everything alright in there, Reyes?_ Maginot asks. 

***

At Ian Kim’s funeral, on Friday, there’s at least a hundred people, including politicians and top brass. A flag is folded, presented to his weeping mother. Reyes wears his uniform. 

_Ian Kim was an exceptional soldier,_ Reyes says, _and a good friend._

At Emiliano Reyes’ funeral, on Saturday, there’s twenty one people, including his grandfather’s band. Reyes wears a black suit he bought for a crate of food and three gallons of water, and plays the stupid song. 

_My abuelito, who was a very talented musician,_ Reyes says, _specifically requested this song because he thought it would be funny._

Maxi, who’s been working in the Hilton restaurant bar as a crooner since 2001 and at weddings, birthdays and funerals since he could hold a tune, sings about a man too angry to die.

 _This explains some stuff,_ Russo says, after.

His team come to both. 

***

The city is full of funerals and memorials and lootings and muggings and people taking advantage of this massacre, people walking around wounded and shellshocked and homeless, he’s lost a team member and his last family member, and the thing that makes Reyes cry, the thing that breaks him, is when some fucker strikes up Las Golodrinas at the wake. 

_A donde irá,_ sings Maxi, _veloz y fatigada_.

Tears start sliding down his face, and he’s furious. The formica table creaks under his clenched fists.

Awray appears at his elbow. _Get some air, jefe?_

***

They end up on the roof, looking out at what’s left. 

_You know, you can pretend, but you are still Latino. You’re meant to be emotional._

He rubs his face in his hands and says nothing. 

_When I was little,_ she says, _South Central LA was like - Valhalla. I wanted to be straight outta Compton, not shitty Tampa Bay._

_Compton’s plenty shitty._

_Yeah, but cooler than fucking Tampa._ She sighs. _They’re already talking about the reconstruction - tagline is ‘Cleaner. Greener. Brighter.’_

_Fuck._ He can picture it already. All glass and coffee shops and moving sidewalks. 

_Yup. Man, I’m not helping at all, am I?_

_You’re doing great._

_Funny, jefe. Hey, you reckon we’ll have time to see the Dr Dre mural? If it’s still up?_

He shrugs, then says, _Did you - are you why Morrison now claims to be into NWA?_

_Oh shit, I am! I forgot, but I gave him like 30 hours of music a couple weeks ago._ She grins. _Why, is he quoting Eazy-E in bed?_

Reyes waits a little too long to say, _No._

Her eyes go wide. _Okay, I know this is inappropriate, for a lot of reasons, lots and lots of reasons, but -_

_Since Monday._

She covers her mouth with both hands for a moment, then starts laughing. 

He laughs too, and it hurts. Tears are streaming down his face, and he’s laughing.

_How we doing?_ Maginot appears at the top of the stairs. Northman, Russo and Jack are behind him.

_We heard someone laughing, and thought, gotta be Reyes. Well known laugher, Reyes._ Russo wanders over to the edge of the roof.

_You okay?_ asks Jack. They haven’t gotten any time alone together since, well, Monday, and Reyes is struck by an uncommonly powerful urge to touch him. To feel his living skin. 

_Obviously,_ says Reyes, and cuffs him, gently, around the back of the head, fingers sliding through his soft hair, just for a second.

Awray slings an arm around Northman’s waist, laughs some more.

***

By the time they get back to base, there’s a whole new cohort there. Thirty freshly enhanced soldiers. The original six become team leaders, under Reyes’ command. He becomes a Captain. Maginot is his second. 

He starts growing out his beard, and trimming it the way Emiliano Reyes did. 

He keeps fucking Jack.


	7. Escalation

It’s another year before Overwatch is invented. 

Three of the newbies die in Detroit because of a new kind of mine. Maginot loses both legs at the knee, and is offered experimental bionic replacements, and he declines to return to service. 

_Feel like I’ve given enough, Captain._

Reyes nods. He does understand. Awray becomes his second. 

***

Jack hasn’t cried in the field again, but he sometimes does in bed. They keep separate rooms, though Awray and Northman don’t. Sometimes Jack comes to his room, sometimes he comes to Jack’s. They both like to go over events, trying to figure out how they could have done better. Figuring out tactics and options.

Jack also talks about books he read, boys he kissed. Hitting golf balls at the stars. Calls him Gabriel, soft and reverent. Talks about how Reyes should fuck him. He asks about Reyes’ childhood, about the kind of music he wanted to play. How Reyes wants to fuck. 

_Guys I’ve been with always wanted,_ Reyes can feel Jack frown, his face pressed against Reyes’chest, _they wanted me to be something I wasn’t. Weaker, or meaner, or less intelligent. Or more controlling._

_People are dumb, Jack._

He reaches up and his hand lands on Reyes’ mouth, lightly, just feeling the shape of his lips. _You always seemed to want me to be the best version of me. Not someone else._

Reyes kisses his fingers. I like you, he thinks, even when I hate you I like you. He can’t say it, because it’s too close to something he can’t take back.

Sometimes he plays guitar, the old torch songs, tries to reconstruct Beyonce from memory. He doesn’t sing, though. If Jack asked, he’d say he doesn’t remember any of the words, but Jack doesn’t ask. He trails his fingers along Reyes’ ribs, kisses under his ear. Reyes leaves chupóns, like strawberries, on Jack’s shoulders and chest, bringing the blood to the surface of his skin, temporary little marks that no one sees but the two of them. 

It’s the sweetest part of his day, going to bed with Jack. 

***

He gets lines carved into his face by an Omnic’s claws, nearly gets his skull crushed. They all pick up scars. 

Four soldiers die in a skirmish in Hawaii.

Awray loses two fingers off her left hand. 

Frank Russo dies in Michigan because a building falls on him. 

Northman talks less and less.

Jack gets shot again, and they have to re-inflate his lung.

He watches a soldier burn to death. He watches children and adults and old people die, cities and fields and suburbs destroyed.

Reyes prays, quietly, at the sink, each morning. 

_Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte, me inclino antes de ti y te pido que seas guardiana y protectora de mi y lo mío en la vida y después de ella._

***

SEP have a better hit rate at actually defeating the Omnics than any other nation. The team loses, all up, twelve soldiers (and eight cities, fifty six towns, millions of non-combatants). Reyes stands at their funerals in his uniform, thinking about their next move.

He read once that armies always prepare to fight the last war they lost. This is unlike any war before it, and will take an army unlike any before it to win.

He sends emails, and interview requests, and turns up in people’s offices, when he can, in dress uniform and looking as respectable as possible. No one really listens, until he meets Gabrielle Adawe.

 _We are used to people not listening, I think._ She smiles at him, and it’s the same smile he saw on that nurse Jack questioned, years ago. Different woman, same little twitch of solidarity. _Which means we don’t talk until it’s something they can’t ignore._

***

The Overwatch merge is kind of a fucking mess. 

He’s suddenly maybe the guy who is in charge of the whole world’s elite fighting units and experimental weapons. He wades through translated paperwork and online interviews, building dream teams.

Awray takes a deskjob with the UN, and takes Northman with her. 

_She’s not going to ask for it,_ says Awray, _but she’s done. Bad PTSD. Won’t stop humming._

Reyes is mad he didn’t see this coming. _If she needs anything - we’ll cover the cost._

_I’m sorry to leave, jefe._

_I should probably be picking a new second anyway. A Russian, maybe. Or one of the Egyptian snipers._

_Not Morrison?_

_We’re meant to be going international, remember?_

_You want to start a thing like this with someone you don’t know at your six? Morrison’s a people person. You know you can trust him._

He lets out a long breath. _I don’t want to fuck this up._

She nods. _Make Morrison your second, jefe. He’ll look out for you._

***

Two days ago, when Reyes was asked to be Commander of Overwatch, he knocks on Jack’s door, feeling like he’s been hollowed out.

 _How’d it go?_ Jack asks as soon as he opens the door. 

Reyes gets inside, walks across the room, steels himself.

 _They want me as commander._ Jack lights up at this, comes and stands in front of Reyes, puts his hands on his shoulders.

_Gabriel, that’s -_

_We have to stop._ Jack freezes. _They explained - Jack, they put me in front if a panel of five fucking politicians and explained how I was their best option, but only if there was no evidence of - they called it intimate collusion._ Jack takes a step back, hands falling to his sides. _That it indicated an abuse of power._

 _It’s not,_ says Jack.

 _Isn’t it?_ Reyes is nauseous. _I’m your senior fucking officer. You’re young. I kissed you. I told you -_

 _That’s not what this is,_ Jack announces. He’s not shouting, or crying, but he’s upset. He’s determined.

Adawe had said, _It’s about the public perception, and the public is a slow moving animal, Captain Reyes. You understand that._

_Doesn’t matter what it is, Jack. It’s what it looks like._

Jack shakes his head. _It’s - blackmail. I can - I’ll testify._

_To who? You think the media’s gonna love a story about all the illicit sex their national darling’s been having? You want everyone to think you fucked your way into saving the world? You’ll be a pariah. We’ll be in no position to help anyone. We’re about to be under global fucking scrutiny, you think we can defy the UN? Keep this secret?_

Jack looks around the room, eyes glazed. Reyes sighs.

 _I shouldn’t have started this. I shouldn’t have kept going. We’re soldiers. I thought -_ he runs a hand over his scalp. _I thought one of us would be dead by now._

Jack’s mouth twists. _Can’t always get what you want._

Reyes nods. _No one does._

They look at each other for a moment. 

Reyes realises his life became a telenovela and a torch song and a sci-fi story, all at once.

 _Don’t - don’t transfer me,_ Jack says suddenly. 

_I wasn’t going to._ He’s too valuable, as a soldier and a public figure.

Jack smiles, a little. _Maybe when the war is over -_

Reyes laughs. _Your fucking bulletproof optimism. If the war ends, if we’re still standing - if, if._

 _If anyone can end this war, it’s you._ He’s still in earnest. 

_Maybe,_ Reyes concedes. _Maybe when the war is over._

 _Well,_ Jack puts out his hand to shake. _Congratulations, Commander._

Reyes stares at Jack’s hand, which he’s held and kissed and had wrapped around his dick, and shakes it.

***

Two days later, he knocks on Jack’s door again. 

_You can say no,_ he starts.

_To what?_

_It’s a lot to ask. But you’re the only person I want in the role. Be my second?_

_In command? Of the Overwatch Initiative?_ Reyes nods. _Of course._

Of course, he says. Of course, like he hasn’t just hitched himself to a man who fucking dumped him two days ago. Jack clearly hasn’t seen any telenovelas. He doesn’t understand grudges.

For a second Reyes wants to - push him. Test him. Hurt him, physically hurt him, and see if he still trusts Reyes - but he already has, really. He’s given orders that have put Jack in harm's way, gotten him hurt, gotten people killed, he’ll keep giving those orders, and Jack just - trusts him.

Reyes puts a hand out to shake. _Congratulations, Lieutenant Commander._

Jack shakes, smiling a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these fucking idiots. story's gonna be 16K, and is just mostly me going like: why can't these characters have nice things? and also me going: because the world is terrible.


	8. Overwatch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow the sadness just keeps happening huh!!! go back to chapter 1 to see some art of baby reyes and maybe cry, like i did?

The founding team, the first strike team, is very weird. Reyes knows this.

Lindholm is essentially a mad scientist. Wilhelm’s probably a time traveller or straight up mythical creature. Liao is like Maginot - pragmatic, observant, sarcastic, under a facade of politeness - but without, as far as everyone can tell, any discernible past - no family, no personal preferences, no favourite songs or shows. Amari sort of hates Reyes and Morrison from the get go, because they’re American, which he likes about her. They’re all combat tested, highly opinionated, lucky as fuck. 

The six of them take out an AI after seven weeks training together with no fatalities, and they get the go ahead. Overwatch gets discretionary spending, starts recruiting, and expands.

The war rages on.

***

Reyes feels, most of the time, like he imagined the year he spent with Jack. 

He was always good at compartmentalising. He never privileged or preferenced Morrison before, and he doesn’t now. 

They spend almost the same amount of time together, all up. On reconnaissance. Writing reports. Interviewing applicants. Morrison leans over his shoulder to look at a map, and it doesn’t matter. No Awray or Russo to wink suggestively at him. Reyes will put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention, sits with him to hash out their next move, sleeps next to him in the field, spars with him, sometimes, but it’s not tense or fraught - it’s normal.

It’s as normal as you can expect life in a thirty person spec ops team featuring members from eighteen nations and a super-intelligent moon monkey to be.

Sometimes, during transit, or dinner, or at the end of a team TV night, which Morrison insists on, Reyes looks up and Jack is - watching him. Watching, with a blank face and wide eyes. Whenever Reyes spots him, Jack will nod very slightly, like, _caught me_ , and not redirect his gaze but just unfocus, so now he’s looking through Reyes. 

It goes unnoticed, Reyes is fairly sure. Maybe Liao spots it, but Reyes decides that to talk about it, with Morrison or Liao, would be too conspicuous.

***

One pleasant summer’s day in South China, he finds Morrison in a crater with an unexploded bomb. 

_Made a new friend, Lieutenant?_ Reyes leans over the edge of the crater - 2.35 meters deep, his eyepiece tells him - and looks at the bomb - an A35-60, with a twenty meter blast radius. It’s old - they haven’t been dropping these for months, and the grass growing around it means it’s probably been here since the first wave.

 _This should be defused,_ he says, with his multitool in his hand. 

_You took a bombs disposal course with all that spare time you have? I’d rather you were doing my paperwork._

_I watched some video tutorials,_ says Morrison, without irony, and Reyes lifts his eyes to the sky.

_No. There won’t be people living here for a while._

_There’ll be scavengers though,_ he says, still in the crater. There have been scavengers in some of their combat zones and clearance sites, some looking for people they lost, traces of their old lives, but more recently, gangs going for Omnic tech and leftover weapons. The latter groups have been dangerous. Sometimes Reyes wants to just fucking shoot them, but mostly they’ve been arresting and jailing them under the UN Secrets Act, which is, in some ways, worse than shooting them. 

_So we bury it._

He gets that stubborn fucking look - it’s just a little crease in his brow, but Reyes knows. _This is someone’s yard, sir._

Reyes looks around. The house is rubble, but there are flowers where the ground isn’t charred, a scorched swingset half hidden behind some overgrown ficus. 

_What’s this?_ Amari asks, coming to stand next to Reyes. 

_Morrison’s applying for a side job as a pink smear._

_This’ll be someone’s yard again. They shouldn’t have a live bomb in it._

_And I should have my whole team in one piece at the end of a mission. Guess which of those I’m prioritising in my mental triage._

Amari says, _We can shoot it. Leave a marker here, and I’ll shoot it from the chopper._

_That’s a good plan. That’s remarkably better than your plan, Morrison._

Jack nods, and puts his multitool back in his pack. Reyes drops to one knee to give him a hand out. 

Jack wipes sweat off his forehead, leaving dirt, looks around as Amari drops a marker. _Be a pity to see all this new growth gone._

Reyes looks at the pink and white flowers, the grass nodding in the wind. Jack, with dirt smudged on his face, like the farm boy he should have been, on this hot, quiet day

 _Some damage has got to get done. You’re lucky to get a choice as to when._

Jack nods, and they move on. 

Waiting for transport, Amari leans towards him. _He has good intentions._

 _I know it._ Reyes stretches his neck, resettles his pack. _I also know that sometimes his good intentions put himself and others at risk. You hear him make a danger close call before getting in that hole?_

She inclines her head. _He had faith in himself._

_I do too._

When the chopper comes in over their target, Amari leans, fires once. The chopper rocks a little with the blast wave. Everyone is watching the explosion, but Reyes is watching Jack, that stubborn little crease still there. 

When Jack turns away from the explosion, he spots Reyes watching him. Reyes nods, incrementally. 

***

Officially, the Omnic crisis is seven years long. There was five and a half years of outright war, eighteen months of negotiation with selected Omniums, the ones who claim to have souls, while others remain aggressive. 

Amari has a goddamn kid in the middle of it, and Reyes starts to track time by Fareeha’s growth. 

She took her first steps just after Munich burns. 

She said her first word same day as the Saigon omnium falls. 

She figures out reading a few days before an alleged domestic terror group blows up a security council negotiation meeting with an Omnic representative. 

The Omnic is destroyed in the blast. Gabrielle Adawe and Alondra Awray die, and four other politicians, and eight guards, and sixteen support staff. 

He watches through two way glass as Liao puts their photos in front of the prime suspect - Dylan Michael Hill, a perfectly generic looking white man who had been hiding an old model 3D printer with traces of semtex still on it under his fucking bed. 

_The first victims of the robots were the factory workers,_ says Hill, _their labour made meaningless._

 _He’s not even upset about the people Omnics killed. He’s upset about people not having to work manufacturing jobs,_ says Morrison, something like wonder in his voice.

Reyes sighs. His entire working relationship with the UN is going to have to be rebuilt. He had been exchanging chocolate rations for chili peppers with Awray - she’d been growing them hydroponically. The last message she sent him was this morning: _someone’s got a line on cinnamon jefe do you even remember cinnamon_. Someone’s already told Northman, which was, apparently, a mess. Negotiations and public relations have been set back six months at least. He’s going to have to find out who gave this lunatic access to the UN, and the printer, and the fucking recipe.

He’d rather kill him. Better people than Hill and Reyes both have died in factories, long before artificial intelligence was even considered. 

For a second, Reyes feels like letting the Omnics win.

 _I never thanked her,_ Jack says. 

Reyes realises he’s breathing fast. _What for?_

Jack shrugs. _Everything._

Reyes nods, takes a slow breath in. _That’s what funerals are for. Saying the things you didn’t get a chance to._

 _They don’t negotiate!_ yells Hill. _They were never going to! It’s about power!_

Liao gathers up the photos.

***

Maginot is at Awray’s funeral - he’s making water purifiers, and has designed and printed his own legs. 

Northman looks at him with red eyes. _You got the guy, cap?_

 _We’re trying to figure out who put him up to it. But he’s,_ he tips his head, _not interested in helping us with our inquiries._

She nods. 

Reyes shakes hands with Alondra Awray’s brothers. Morrison says a short speech at the wake, about how much Awray taught him in so little time. 

Northman doesn’t cry. She just nods.

***

Dylan Michael Hill is shot with a high powered rifle during transportation to a secure facility. 

Caitlin Northman disappears.

Reyes never finds out whether Awray’s line on cinnamon was any good.

***

 _Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte, me inclino antes de ti y te pido que seas guardiana y protectora de mi y lo mío en la vida y después de ella,_ Reyes says.

Morrison had insisted on finding out and observing at least one of everyone’s holy days, as much as possible. They’ve had Nowruz where Parsiavashi made everyone jump over a lit flare. Christmas where Kowalski handed out stale biscuits. Diwali where Sinha got them to put food wrapper over LEDs to make coloured lights. Saramego made everyone eat fish shaped candies for a Croat thing she probably made up. Tierney's St Patrick's Day beer has everyone pissing green.

They’re all good, in different ways. Holy days are important, like him and his classmates playing basketball and finding old Yo! MTV Raps to watch on the 20th of January. 

Reyes didn’t say anything, when Morrison was making a list. He enjoys Halloween, which Gibson insisted on. Candy and costumes are difficult to fuck up. It’s fun.

***

Day after Halloween, each year, wherever he is, he finds a room to be alone in. He uses chalk, or grease, once, to draw a skull on the wall. He lights a single candle beneath it. 

This year, he made a flower out of paper. He puts his chocolate rations there. The dried peppers Awray sent, which he kept for this. He folds his legs under himself, runs his fingers over the strings of his guitar. 

_Espero,_ he picks out the opening to Back in Black. He thinks about his mother’s hands, her hair, how Awray would have loved her. About how his mother would have loved Adawe. 

_Espero,_ he reaches out, and passes his hand over the flame, not close enough to burn, just to feel it. 

_Espero estar en paz pronto._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (you die a hero or live long enough to see yourself kill of a queer woman of colour. also, I stole the bomb in the garden from generation kill. y'all should watch generation kill.)


	9. Bedroom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war officially ends.

The war officially ends. 

There’s a ceremony in Edinburgh, which was relatively untouched. The building is swept several times for explosives. Everyone is vetted and vetted again. Eventually the photo op happens, and then people want to shake his hand.

That night, Reyes is lying on top of the bed in half his dress uniform when there’s a knock at the door. He’s fucking tempted not to even get up, but that’s Jack’s knock. They figured out a code back in the early days of Overwatch, so Reyes could know whether Jack was alone, in company, or with hostiles. Just that extra bit of paranoia.

This knock means he’s alone.

Reyes re-does his shirt buttons as he crosses the room.

 _Sitrep?_ he asks, when he opens the door. 

Jack holds up a bottle of something clear. _War’s over._

 _So they say. Got an 0800 meeting with the council that says different._ Reyes lets him in, shuts the door after glancing up and down the hall. Apparently clear.

_I got one at 0815. Probably want to talk about the future - peacekeeping._

_Dealing with all those gangs and warlords and rogue elements._ Reyes watches Jack walk over to the counter, pour out a couple of cups. _What’s this?_

 _Vodka. Traded with Kovel._ Reyes can’t immediately tell if he’s avoiding the real question on purpose. Jack is also in dress pants and shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbow. His forearms are scarred, but glitter with small golden hairs.

_Nothing valuable, I hope, he’s brewing out of old armament containers._

Jack presses a cup into Reyes’ hand. _Gets the job done, I hear._

Reyes watches Jack knock his back, drinks too. _Wars don’t really end, Jack. You know that._

 _We had a ceremony and everything,_ says Jack. _It’s over._

_There’s still Omnics everywhere, and we don’t know how many will turn. Global economy’s broken. Everyone’s traumatised. There’s seven new supposed terror groups popped up since last month._

_Gabriel,_ Jack takes the cup away from him. _The war is over._

Reyes blames the fact that he didn’t get any sleep last night. He blames the fact that he was on high alert for attacks from all other quarters. He blames his exceptional skill at compartmentalising.

He stares at Jack a second, and Jack gives him that tiny nod. 

Reyes remembers a song, but just the chorus, _Tú, sólo tú._

Jack comes in slow, giving him plenty of time to say no, to turn his head away, to reach up and shove Jack onto his ass, to tell him that they’re still soldiers and they still have work to do.

Instead, he lets his eyes slide shut and lets Jack kiss him. 

He brings his hands up to Jack’s soft hair, opens his mouth, presses in - Jack’s fingers find the edge of his shirt, touch the skin of his stomach, and Reyes staggers a little.

 _Are you -_ Jack starts, worried and beautiful. Reyes kisses him so he can’t ask any questions. 

Jack wraps his arms around Reyes, buries his face in his neck, rocks his hips, and Reyes gasps, drags his open mouth along Jack’s cheek. 

He unbuttons Jack’s shirt, shoves it off his shoulders. Jack’s hands slide around his waist, his knee between Reyes’ thighs.

When he drops to his knees, and smiles up at Reyes as he unbuttons his fly, Reyes feels dizzy. Jack kisses his hip, along the line of muscle there, licks his dick, which is rock hard. Reyes settles his hands on Jack's head, gentle, to ground himself. Jack swallows him, makes a choked, desperate noise, like he’s dying, and - and -

Reyes is crying. 

There are so many people dead - he’s here, in this room, alive and warm and so many people are dead.

He comes, shuddering, and curves over Jack, who is panting. Reyes sobs, his knees buckling.

 _Gabriel,_ Jack says, stroking his face, _Gabriel, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._

_No - I’m just -_ he drags himself together, pants around his thighs, crouched weeping on the floor with Jack Morrison, Jack Morrison’s wet mouth. _I’m tired. I’m so tired._

Jack nods, cups his head with his hand, touches their foreheads together. _You can sleep._

Jack helps him up. Reyes shoves his pants down, shrugs off his shirt, climbs into bed. Jack slides in behind him, in his boxers, curves around him, lips against the back of his neck. _Sleep_ , he says, and Reyes does.

*** 

When he wakes up, he realises Jack hung his dress pants up for him. Reyes definitely would have done that if Jack hadn’t distracted him with sex. Jack’s already gone, which is clever. Cleverer than Jack used to be.

***

It’s only a minute into the meeting that Reyes realises he’s being fired. It’s another two minutes after that he realises he’s being given a new job. 

_We’d like you to head up these covert operations,_ says Gqom. _Extractions. Retrieval. Take control of the things that need to be controlled, in a suitably clandestine way. You would have discretion with your operations and recruitment._

 _Who will head up Overwatch?_ Reyes asks. 

_We’re in talks presently._ Salameh looks over her glasses. _We’ll let you know as soon as there’s confirmation._

If it’s not him, Reyes thinks, it’s probably be a political appointment. He can’t, from here, turn down what’s being offered to him, because with some bureaucrat in charge of Overwatch, the blackops are going to have to be very good, very tight, as on the level as possible, while still being covert. 

He could take Liao. He could take Villamoor, and Magsaysay, and Epshteyn, and Banda. They could start with an investigation into who provided that printer to Hill, which has never been satisfactorily answered. They could knock out that corporation controlling the fresh water in Central America. They could track down some of that uranium Kazakhstan keeps claiming they’re not selling. They could - 

_We do need an answer from you now, Commander._ Galinski folds his hands. _And of course, this can’t leave the room._

He’ll leave Morrison to corral whoever is in charge of Overwatch now. He’s too recognised for covert work, and then they won’t be in the same chain of command and maybe - the war isn’t over, but maybe - 

He looks up at the panel, and nods.

Galinski taps something on his tablet, and Reyes knows with an unsupportable certainty that this has already left the room.

***

He gets Lindholm, Wilhelm, Amari and Liao in his room. Jack’s not back yet - getting the news broken to him, Reyes guesses.

 _How can you agree to this, not knowing who you’ll be answering to?_ Wilhelm says, frowning.

 _They were pretty clear,_ says Reyes. _I could be in the cold, or I could be Blackwatch_.

 _You’re being sidelined,_ says Liao. 

_They’re pushing Overwatch more public. More of the peacekeeping, quality of life, less of the arrests and explosions._

_But you’ll still be arresting and exploding, won’t you?_ Amari says. _With your Blackwatch._

_I never liked publicity._

_I wonder who we’ll have,_ says Lindstrom. _I wonder whose tender mercies you are abandoning us to._

Jack knocks on the door, and Reyes crosses to it. _They said they’d let me know as soon as they confirmed. Finding someone to take on you stubborn fucks is gonna be a task and a half._ He opens the door. _Did they tell you who’s in charge of this circus now?_

 _Me,_ says Jack, eyes wide.

 _You?_ Reyes says, not understanding, then, _You. Of course._ He starts laughing. He leans against the wall, laughing. He hasn’t laughed this hard since Fareeha said her first swear word, aged three and a half. She had spilled food on her dress, looked down at it sadly and said _It’s fucked._.

 _Morrison?_ asks Wilhelm, _You are our new commander?_

 _They - they said you’d stepped down - I couldn’t let anyone else take Overwatch._ Jack looks shellshocked. 

_Yeah, well._ Reyes straightens up. _They told me they were taking Overwatch in a new direction, and could I please take on this very important black-ops team we just invented._

 _You’re in charge of Blackwatch?_ asks Jack.

Of course Jack knows about Blackwatch already. Of course they didn’t tell him who Blackwatch's new commander is. _Why else would I step down?_

 _You said you were tired,_ says Morrison, quietly. 

There is very short, loud moment of silence, then Amari says, _You were railroaded_.

Reyes shakes his head. _We got gamed. By the fucking UN._

 _To what end, though?_ Lindholm asks. 

_Good PR. He’s the great white hope,_ says Liao, pointing at Jack. 

And I’m the big black death, thinks Reyes. _This is the best possible scenario, though._ Reyes turns it over in his mind. _None of us want Overwatch, or Blackwatch, run by anyone we can’t trust._

_Yes,_ says Wilhelm. _To break in a new leader would be time consuming._

 _We’ve spent years getting Morrison and Reyes acclimated to our specific needs,_ says Amari.

Jack looks at Reyes again. 

Reyes puts his hand out to shake. _Wouldn’t want anyone else in the role, Commander. Congratulations._

Jack frowns, and then extends his hand. _Congratulations._

***

They talk it out, the whole team, until they have to start to pack - they’re back to base in a couple hours, and fuck if that isn’t going to be a situation - figuring out a new base for an organisation that doesn’t officially exist. 

Everyone filters out, except Jack, who stands there, with his hands in his pockets. 

_Go on, Morrison._ He turns to his bag. _Don’t want to be late, sir._

 _I thought,_ says Jack, _that I was protecting -_ he stops, but Reyes doesn’t look at him.

_What?_

_What you built. So you could - rest._

_Soldiers like us rest when they’re dead, Morrison._

_You always gotta make it about death._ That’s almost petulant, and Reyes turns around. Jack’s face is hard to look at, but he does it.

_Our line of work, it already is._

Jack shakes his head. _I’ll have your back, Reyes. You’ll have mine, right?_

_Yeah. You should make Amari your second._

Jack takes a step closer. Reyes takes a step back. Jack just - shuts down. _I’m sorry._

 _I know. I am too._ Reyes turns back to his bag. _It’s a difficult job._

He packs his things until Jack leaves the room, closing the door with a careful click. Then he sits on the edge of the bed, presses his face into his hands, and take several long, deep breaths.

After that, he gets up and gets to work. He’s got a lot to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> updates are slowing down due to life, but the whole things should be done by next week. thirteen chapters of the bad things the world makes gabriel reyes do.
> 
> 30/07/18 - pls check out this absolutely astonishing illustration of a scene from this chapter i am in awe http://veneficasum.tumblr.com/post/176275974034/drew-a-scene-from-chapter-9-of-who-will-i-sing


	10. Blackwatch (Growth)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reyes deals with a break up by adopting a texmex juvenile delinquent

Jack Morrison takes to command. He’s inspirational, organised, gives good speeches, gets on the front line. Reyes sees a photo of him holding a small child’s hand in his, hoisting a pulse rifle, looking noble as shit. If it had been anyone else, Reyes would have assumed the photo had been posed or digitally manipulated. The whole world knew Jack Morrison’s face. Now they know his name, and his life story, and his fucking shoe size.

Gabriel Reyes takes to black-ops. He’s patient, logical, good at lying, gets into the gutter, behind the lines. He grows his hair out, to be less recognisable, to be more ethnic, starts wearing hoods and beanies, like he did when he was biking packages around Orange County, for the same reason - avoiding surveillance. 

Less oversight is fucking nice. It’s fucking nice to start stepping over the red tape and rules he’s been navigating his whole life. He can see a problem, corruption or stupidity or evil, and, surgically, remove it. It’s hard, and strange, and satisfying.

***

Reyes designs them a logo. 

His first idea is the skull of an owl. His grandfather had an owl skull over his bed, which he prayed to each night. 

It’s in a lock box, along with Emiliano and Catrina’s ID cards and ashes, a coiled E string that’s probably perished, an old photo of Emiliano playing guitar, Catrina’s silver rings.

He hadn’t thought about that box for a long time. 

He draws it, looks at it, lets his eyes unfocus for a second. He draws it again, more stylised, less obvious. He draws it again, six more times, until no one could tell what it was, unless they were looking for it.

He takes it to Liao. Liao frowns, holds the tablet a little closer. _A stealth plane? And a sword?_

_Yup,_ says Reyes. 

_It’s not subtle, is it?_

Reyes raises an eyebrow. _Is subtlety what we’re aiming at? I thought we were trying to strike fear into the hearts of superstitious fools. There’s other designs._ Liao flicks through a couple of images, further and further from his first drawing. Things that look more like a globe, more like a gun.

_No, go with the first one._ Liao taps it. _Can’t hurt to strike some fear._

***

Months pass without seeing Strike Commander Morrison. He sends his reports, and requests, gets orders and feedback and new tech. 

First time they saw each other since Blackwatch’s inception, Reyes gives Morrison a tour of his new base, talks him through the active operations.

It’s not insulting, Reyes tells himself. It’s protocol. It’d be weird if he didn’t. It’d be weird if he hadn’t lowered his voice, adopted a big coat and firm stride, to be more commanding.

The voice slips when Morrison finishes the tour, stands in Reyes’ new command room, which is half the size of his old one.

_You’ve already exceeded the Council’s expectations._

_What about yours, Commander?_ He grins, to let him know it’s meant as a joke, but Jack looks - for a second he looks angry, and then his face smooths over. He’s getting better at this.

_My expectations for you were always exceptional,_ he says, blank faced, but too quiet to be anything but intimate. Maybe he’s not better at this at all, Reyes realises. 

Reyes doesn’t respond for too long, and Jack sags. _Gabriel - we’re friends, aren’t we?_

Reyes feels extremely guilty, extremely suddenly. _Yes, Jack. We’re friends._

_Good._ He resets his shoulders, drops into command voice again. _You’ve done a good job._

_Thank you, sir._

***

They start with three teams. In a year, there’s six. 

They work small, detailed, gathering intelligence over months. He breaks a man’s neck in Alaska, and three days later the food drought is over. He watches a woman in Calcutta beat her boss to death, and within a month, she runs the factory. They steal seventy tonnes of plastic explosive from a death cult in Norway.

Reyes visits Overwatch, to debrief Morrison and talk tactics, to count Fareeha’s missing teeth, to let Wilhelm tell him about the climate stuff they’re doing, to spar with Amari so she can tell him how clumsy Americans are.

_You are missed,_ says Lindholm. 

_Morrison’s not that bad,_ says Reyes, _as a commander_.

Lindholm rolls his eyes. _Not bad as a commander, no. You are very obtuse, for a covert officer._

***

Blackwatch recruits out of all nations’ basic training, veterans associations, intelligence communities and, sometimes, jails. 

By the second year, they have nine teams.

***

_How old?_ asks Morrison, staring through the two way mirror. 

_Seventeen_ Reyes tells him.

_Oh good,_ Morrison rumbles. _He’s seventeen._

_One of these days, Strike Commander, the truth will out. They whole world will know what a goddamn nerd you are._

Jack half smiles at the glass. _Really, though. Seventeen._

_Ziegler’s seventeen._

_She’s in R &D, not combat._

_Not yet._ Morrison huffs, a little - that’s another conversation. _Besides, I was seventeen when I signed up. Had to get my grandfather’s permission. This kid doesn’t have anyone to get permission from._

_You were seventeen?_ he asks, and Reyes shrugs.

_I coulda been a burden, a criminal, or a soldier. This kid’s the same - and he’s already better at shooting than I was at his age. Kneecapped three of ours. With a six shooter. We don’t want someone like that on any side but ours._

Morrison nods. _If you can turn him, you can keep him. But keep an eye on him._

_No, sir, I was going to let the adolescent with the guns loose in our covert facility here. Thought that’d be a real fun and interesting time._

_Good to hear, Commander._

Reyes nods, heads out. 

_Reyes?_ He turns in the doorway. Jack looks properly at him. _You never would have been a burden. Or a criminal._

_Always going to have been a soldier, then,_ Reyes says, and walks out. 

***

He sits across from the kid, who’s glaring at a sandwich someone brought him.

_You gonna give me my sombrero and cinturón back?_

_Quizás. You don’t like peanut butter, kid?_

_Not a kid._

_Gotta call you something, vaquero._

He sniffs. _Jesse McCree._

_You don’t like peanut butter, McCree?_

_Don’t know what it is. No me gusta la comida gringa._

_Luckily, peanut butter was invented by a black man._ McCree glances up at him. _Friend of mine tells me bread’s from Egypt, too. You don’t want it, I can have it._ The kid tears off a corner of the sandwich, sticks it in his mouth.

_Esta bien._ Reyes nods. The kid stuffs half the sandwich into his mouth.

_¿Eres mexicano?_

The kid chews some more, swallows, swallows again. Reyes pushes his own cup of water across the table. McCree swigs it, wipes his mouth. 

_Soy americano._ He hitches up the corner of his mouth. _Como tú._

Reyes grins the same way, and offers him a job. 

***

Jesse McCree accepts entry into Blackwatch on the condition that they go to the Deadlock base of operations to get his stuff. 

_You mean that buckle’s not the most valuable thing you own?_

_My smokes. My books._

_We can get you tabacco, and you can pull up pretty much any book on there,_ Reyes tells him, pointing at the tablet McCree’s been messing with.

McCree squints at the tablet. _Paper books._

_You’re a real anachronism, vaquero._

_¿Qué?_

_Anacronismo. Un hombre afuera de su tiempo._

McCree folds his arms, juts out his chin. _You gonna make a lesson out of everything?_

Reyes stares him down. _Quizás._

***

Liao looks him over, critically. 

_That hat’s not particularly stealth._

McCree bristles, but Reyes says _I think it strikes fear._

Liao glances between them. _You may be right._

***

Getting McCree disciplined enough to go on a mission is work. He’s a hell of a shot, and good at tactics, but also good at fucking ignoring orders and saying dumb cowboy shit down the comms.

First mission he’s on, he still says dumb cowboy shit, but he follows orders. He damn near saves Reyes’ ass, shooting a roided out Bosnian skinhead in the chest. 

_¿Cómo lo hago?_

_Bien._ Reyes feels along the healing bruises on his face. _Didn’t go for the kneecaps like you did with us._

_Y’all weren’t aiming to kill. Feo was._

_Bien,_ says Reyes again. _Good work._

***

He takes Jesse to the Swiss HQ - he’s got a Council meeting, and Jesse needs to make friends that aren’t Stephen King or Zane Gray. 

_You’d like Arturo Pérez-Reverte,_ McCree tells him, on the plane.

_I’d like for you to read some more intel reports,_ Reyes says. 

***

He leaves McCree with Amari, figures she can tell him how clumsy Americans are while she makes him feel bad about his aim. 

In the meeting, Reyes explains some of the money he’s spent, some of the people he’s killed, some of the threats his teams have eliminated. The Council makes a few noises about acceptable losses, mostly about the money.

By the time he’s out of the meeting, McCree’s not in the gun range, or the gym, or the chopper, and no one has seen him.

_You lost your gun wielding adolescent in my facility?_ Jack says, pulling up security feeds.

_I left him with Ana, and she’s goddamn -_ he points. _There she is._

Amari, Fareeha and McCree are on the eastern roof, shooting practice rifles at target drones.

Fareeha’s practice rifle is nearly as tall as her, and she is wearing McCree’s hat. 

_Well._ Jack sits back. _That’s probably educational._

***

He makes the Overwatch HQ visits with McCree regular. Gets him invited to Halloween.

He doesn’t tell McCree who he prays to. McCree doesn’t ask. Reyes spends the day after Halloween alone, still, with a temporary shrine. 

_Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte, me inclino ante y pedir a ti el guardián y protector a mí y la mía, en la vida y después de ella._

***

He and Morrison do disagree, about some things. Who should and should not be in the field - whether it’s necessary to terminate or rehabilitate organisations - what they can overlook and what they can’t.

_He’s a criminal,_ says Morrison, _and you left him in charge of an orphanage?_

Reyes stares at him. _He knows how to handle the local council. He knows who’d be targeting street kids, where they meet up. If we’re not working with criminals, we’re not getting a single fucking thing done._

_Not much of a role model,_ says Jack. 

_They trust him. He wants better for them than he had._ Reyes shakes his head. _You’re meant to be the optimist, Commander._

Jack looks, for a second, haggard. _I trust your judgement._

***

Four years in is the first Reyes hears of Talon.

He and Liao are interrogating a smuggler, a Canadian guy wearing a black bag, tied to a chair. 

They’re in black ski masks - Blackwatch policy is to interrogate in masks, to intimidate and avoid identification. Liao steps in first, moving fast and silent, getting up close to the guy in the chair. Reyes stands back in the corner, out of the light, but still visible. 

Liao whips the bag off. _Hello, François._

François blinks, stares around, starts crying. _Merde, merde. Vous Talon. Merde!_

_We’re whoever you want us to be, if you answer our questions, François. We could even be friends._

_Anything! Anything! Please, ne me détourner pas, please!_

After, Liao frowns. _Who’s Talon?_

_Someone who hijacks. Maybe they hijacked our look._

_I’ll look into them,_ says Liao. _Don’t want to step on any aesthetic toes._

***

Reyes is undercover in Jakarta with Kiarama and Yazdi when he sees the spice stall. 

They were meant to be inconspicuous, but frankly buying some spices is pretty good cover for anyone. The arms dealer he’s meant to be probably also misses flavour.

He buys, from a man called Bagus, a hundred dollars worth of cinnamon. It fits in his hand. Bagus throws in raw sugar cane for free, and tells him where to find cocoa beans.

Reyes has to go pretend to want to sell some rocket launchers to Australians, but he comes back, when they’ve been cable tied together and stashed in a shipping container. He spends three hundred on cocoa beans. He thanks Santa Muerte.

***

All kitchens in Overwatch and Blackwatch bases are set up for automation and printing only, so he ends up in Winston’s lab.

_What’re you making?_ Farheeha boosts herself up onto the counter. She’s a strong kid, careful but unafraid. _Is it explosive?_

_Champurrado. It’s a drink._

_We’re not meant to eat or drink things out of lab equipment._

_Quite right,_ says Winston from the other side of the lab. _But everything’s been particularly sterilised. And those chili peppers are from our own bushes._ All the chilis in all the Overwatch and Blackwatch greenhouses are cultivated from Awray’s seeds.

_It’s a special occasion._

Fareeha nods. _What kind of drink?_

_Special occasion kind._

Amari comes in, nose raised. _Is that cinnamon? Where did you get cinnamon?_

_Classified._ He raises the spoon to his mouth, tastes it. _Here, try this,_ he dips another for Fareeha.

_It’s thick. Is it meant to be thick?_

_Just try it, baby,_ he says.

She wrinkles up her nose, then tries it. Her eyes go wide. 

McCree wanders in with Liao. _What’s that smell?_

He’s made enough for maybe ten or twelve people, but - Fareeha and Jesse have never had anything like real food, really. Even Ziegler gets in on it. By the time Jack gets there, it’s all gone.

_What was it?_

_Champurrado._

_It’s a drink for special occasions,_ says Fareeha. _It’s like -_

_Spicy hot chocolate. I’ve read about it._

_It’s not anything like hot chocolate!_ Fareeha protests, because she’s been eating things made by machines her whole life.

Why would Jack Morrison have read about champurrado, Reyes wonders.

Morrison leans over Fareeha, who is running a finger around the bowl, gets his thumb in a little left over, sticks it in his mouth. _S’good._

Reyes doesn’t look at Jack’s mouth around his own thumb. He doesn’t think about how it’s been over ten years since he’s seen Jack’s dick. There are children present, so he thinks about nothing.

_Maybe I’ll make some again. Next time I get some cinnamon._

Jack smiles at Fareeha. Reyes smiles at her too.

Later, Reyes thinks of these as the good years.


	11. Blackwatch (Anniversary)

January of the seventh year of Blackwatch, Liao gets shot three times in the chest in a highrise in Zambia. Yazdi, who was on point, is dead. Reyes has a bullet in his femur, he’s pretty sure. McCree’s meant to be on his way, but their comms are fucked. 

_Putang ina!_ Liao shouts when Reyes pumps fulafoam into the bubbling wounds. 

_Was that Spanish?_ Reyes starts wrapping his chest. 

_Tagalog,_ Liao says, through gritted teeth. _Spaniards got around._

 _Thought you’re from Taiwan?_ Their masked attackers are all dead, which is only a little satisfying.

 _Ina,_ Liao gasps, _mother was Filipina. Taught us to swear._ The highrise is on fire. 

_Us?_ They’re on the fourth floor.

 _Twin sister._ It went so badly sideways because someone had been expecting them. Who the fuck knew when to expect them, Reyes wants to know.

 _Learning so much about you, Liao. We should chat like this more often._ Reyes looks a little out the window - a new set of masked fuckers are swarming in. There are no safe exits.

 _She doesn’t know - what I do now. Reyes - you gotta - tell her -_ He can see, down the road, McCree, in some stolen hoodless four by four, barrelling towards them. He’s going to get himself shot trying to storm the building, Reyes knows. He’s got one grapple, which they can use as a rappel or a zipline, until it gets burnt or shot, which will soften the landing some. Maybe he’ll fuck up his legs, but Jesse’s nearly here.

 _You tell her,_ Reyes drags Liao onto his back, secures their belts together with zipties, Liao’s arms strapped across Reyes’ chest. _After we make this jump._

_Bobo. Tarantado._

_It’s a pretty language._ Reyes shoots out the wall around the window, fires a grapple across the road.

 _Leave me, dumbfuck._ Reyes tests the handle - it’s not designed for two, but Jesse’s about thirty seconds away.

 _No one left behind,_ says Reyes, and jumps. 

He does fuck up his legs, pretty bad. There’s some bone jutting through the skin. Liao passes out. Jesse drags them both into the four by four. They collect some more bullets driving away.

Reyes stares at the moon in the sky, and prays.

***

Reyes wakes up with Zeigler and McCree having some kind of stand-off at the foot of his bed. 

_How are you, Gabriel?_ Zeigler’s been trying to mother him and everyone else on base since she joined up.

_Liao?_

Jesse looks sick. Zeigler looks sorry. Reyes closes his eyes.

***

He’s on some heavy drugs, so the next 36 hours are fragmented memories and fucked up dreams. 

***

_You shattered sixteen of your bones, Commander, including both kneecaps. Your survival of that fall was a miracle. Even with your advanced healing, and my best efforts, you will need the casts for a month. I am grounding you._

***

Liao’s body, weighing him down. Full of words and facts Reyes never knew.

***

_After that, we proceeded to the drop point, but we were - and I don’t know how - fucking ambushed. Put that in the report - fucking ambushed._

***

 

His casts are white honeycomb, printed for him, but they’re also bones. They’re the bones of all the people who’ve died because of him, and he gets to wear them. He gets to remember them.

***

_Si hubiera conseguido antes \- I’d’ve gotten you all out._

***

He prays, silently, for Zhi Liao and Arda Yazdi.

***

_You could have died too, McCree._

***

In his dreams, all his bones are on the outside, and everyone can see what he is.

***

When he wakes up, later, Jack is sitting by his bed, tapping on a tablet. 

_You meant to be here, Strike Commander?_

Jack clambers to his feet. He looks tired. _No. But this place doesn’t officially exist, so I am not officially here._

_I gave my report to - someone._

_I got it._ Morrison’s got bags under his eyes, and a downturned mouth. He’s getting old, and is still beautiful. 

_Did you know Liao’s got a twin? And their mother’s from the Philippines?_

_I knew about the sister. Philippines is new._

_Zhi Liao was the cagiest motherfucker out of all of us. Shoulda put Liao in charge of Blackwatch._ Reyes squints at the ceiling. _I’m still kinda out of it. What day is it?_

 _Friday. The 20th._ Reyes nods, closes his eyes. _Today’s the day, isn’t it? From the song? The good day._

Reyes slowly opens his eyes. _January 20th._ Jack nods. _How did you know that?_

_I looked it up, back when I first heard the song. I was curious._

He was fucking curious. Reading up about LA rappers, and Mexican drinks. 

Reyes reaches up, drugs slowing his movement, and grabs Jack’s wrist. He tugs him closer, dragging Jack’s hand up to his face.

_Reyes - what are you -_

He kisses Jack’s fingers, and lets go. 

He hears him sigh as he falls back asleep.

***

He was on some heavy drugs, so Reyes decides he can forget that happened. 

Jack wasn’t even officially there, so he can also forget, and Reyes assumes he does. 

***

He writes a message to Liao’s sister. He calls Liao a hero, and a friend, says Liao was an exemplar of patience and sarcasm and how to swear in Tagalog.

***

Two weeks after the weird quiet funeral you have when black ops soldiers die on non-existent missions, a ten meter tall memorial to the victims of the security council bombing. 

It’s going to have Awray and and Adawe’s names, the names of all the people who died. Strike Commander Morrison’s going to give a speech. The ceremony will be on February 8th, ten years to the day.

Reyes is still grounded, on Ziegler’s orders. _If you ever want to walk without prosthetics, you will listen to me. If you would like me to replace your legs entirely, please let me know._

 _Beginning to realise,_ says Lindholm, _the little joke of her nickname?_

 _Mercy,_ says McCree, glowering. _’Bout as subtle as a roadtrain._

***

Reyes watches the memorial unveiling on live stream from his room in the Toronto Watch Point, which is the closest Ziegler would let him get to New York. He’s been there ten days, convalescing by going over security details, short and long term plans, old surveillance logs. McCree and Fareeha are trying to distract him with a card game they invented.

He’s not even a little distracted, so he hears the shot, sees the crowd scatter, before the feed cuts out.

 _Get me a phone,_ he says, and Jesse bolts out of the room.

 _That was a sniper,_ Fareeha says, with certainty. 

_It was,_ agrees Reyes, and he knows he’s probably meant to tell her everything’s going to be alright, because she’s a kid. 

But she is her mother’s daughter, and she grew up around war and uncertainty. He says, _We’re going to find out who they are, and what they did, and why._

*** 

The sniper killed six people before Amari found him - nested in a brick wall - and kicked him into unconsciousness. 

One was a local politician. One was a UN bigwig. One was Amal Sandali, Overwatch solider. The rest were civilians. 

One was Alec Maginot.

***

Morrison and Amari fly the sniper into Toronto, to interrogate him. The first Reyes and Fareeha see of either of them is when McCree brings in a screen showing the feed from downstairs. 

Morrison has a red line on his temple. 

_Bullet just missed him, apparently._ McCree leans forward. _Man’s got the luck of a saint._

Saints, as far as Reyes remembers, mostly suffered. 

Reyes looks at his phone - he set McGuire, Banda, Villamoor and Villegas to investigate their sniper. Facial recognition says he’s Jason Gretz, 32. 

_We are the righteous ones,_ says Gretz. _We know who the betrayers of the human race really are._

 _Is he sick?_ asks Fareeha. _Mentally?_

 _Someone gave this man a D3-48 ceramic rifle, and the training to use it._

_So he’s faking._

_Could be,_ says McCree. _People can be experienced fighters, and also sick._

_Research says he’s a mechanic from Nevada._ Reyes skims through what he’s been sent. _Been off the grid for eight months. Some criminal activity, but no weapons more complicated than a wrench. He’s not military._

_We are Talon! We are more than you can ever know!_

Reyes starts tapping a message to Banda, _Give me everything we have on Talon._

 _He is sick,_ says Fareeha, _look._

Gretz has a nosebleed. He stares at Amari, for a moment, and slumps forward. 

_Medic!_ yells Amari. 

***

Aneurysm, McCree reports. 

_Convenient,_ says Reyes. 

_Can you cause one of those? Trigger it?_ asks Fareeha.

_Not sure. But it certainly did happen precisely after he said the name of a shady group who may or may not have kidnapped some people._

_Either someone really didn’t want us to hear what he was going to say next,_ says Fareeha, _Or someone really wanted us to hear what he did say._

 _You should join Blackwatch, hermanita,_ McCree grins at her. 

_I’m gonna be in Overwatch, like Amma._

Reyes reads through the file - there’s not much, and it’s all rumours. _Talon have a reputation for - zombies, in some places, slaves in others. Hijacking operations, people. Could be they figured out how to program people._

 _Mind control?_ Fareeha frowns. _That’s like something out of a story._

Reyes looks at her, little soldier’s daughter, with gold beads in her hair. _Baby, you’re friends with a cowboy and a gorilla._

She folds her arms. _I’m not a baby anymore._

Too old to be called baby. That’s how much time has passed. _That’s true, I’m sorry. Young lady, you’re friends with a cowboy, and a gorilla, and you’re investigating a brainwashed sniper who tried to shoot your mother on the anniversary of a robot war. After a while, you gotta get used to things being weird._

 _Nothing weird about dressing the way I do,_ says McCree.

***

Amari gets Fareeha at ten. At midnight, he tells Jesse to turn in. 

Reyes crutches his way to the dining room.

Jack is there, in his shirtsleeves, staring into a cup. He looks up, sharply.

 _Just me._ Reyes approaches, slides into a seat opposite, casts stretched in front of him.

 _Just us._ The red mark on his temple is both a cut and a burn. An inch to the right and he’d be dead. He raises his cup, to Reyes, face blank. _All that’s left of the original SEP._

_Did you talk to Maginot?_

_I was going to. After. His sister’s coming up in Overwatch Engineering. Misty Maginot._

_Good. Good for her._ He remember’s Kim’s mother, Russo’s four siblings, Awray’s brothers. _You ever hear from Northman?_

Jack shakes his head. _Guess that’s for the best. Might have to bring her in for questioning about Hill._

Reyes looks closely to see if that’s a joke, but it doesn’t seem to be.

_Would you be able to? Arrest her? For doing what we both wanted to do?_

_Don’t know._ He rubs a hand over his face. _Don’t want to find out. I miss her, though. I miss - everyone._ His eyes seem extra blue, because they’re bloodshot. He’s been crying.

 _C’mon. My room._ Morrison blinks. Reyes starts to get to his feet, which is a process. _I’m not having McCree catching me watching Star Trek, Jack._

He blinks twice more, and tips his head. _Is your authority that tenuous? That’s worrying, Reyes._

_Shut up, Morrison._

***

Reyes finds the one with the tribbles, because no one dies in that. 

They watch sitting on Reyes’ bed, shoulder to shoulder, backs against the wall. 

It’s fine. It’s normal. They’re co-commanders. They lost too many people in too short a space to not need something. 

Jack’s real still and quiet throughout.

When the episode ends, Jack buries his face in his hands - he’s shaking a little.

Reyes rests a hand, carefully, on Jack’s shoulder. 

_It’s just so stupid,_ Jack whispers. _It’s such a stupid show._

_What?_

Jack looks up - he’s shaking with laughter. _That’s not how - anything works - that ship makes no sense!_

 _Are you fucking with me?_ Reyes grins. 

_Remember the time travel one? That’s not - how causality works!_

_It took you how many years to figure this out?_

Jack smiles, transforming his exhausted face. _I’m not as smart as you._

Suddenly, neither of them are smiling. They’re sitting too close together, pretending like they’re young, or something. Jack opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

Reyes thinks, _corazón abandonado, ya no sigas donde estás._

They each lean in, this time. Reyes touches his nose to Jack’s, for a moment, and Jack sighs.

When they kiss, it’s not exactly like it was. He’s still warm, sweet, slow, but - he’s tired. They both are. 

Reyes shucks his shirt before he can think better of it, watches Jack tug off his own, counts the new scars as he starts dragging Jack’s pants down. 

Jack unties Reyes’ drawstring, curls his fingers around Reyes’ dick, just for a moment, but Reyes slides down the bed, settles between Jack’s bare legs. 

He takes his time. He blows Jack, deep and slow, stops to mouth at his balls, hands hard on his hips. Jack shudders, spread his legs wider, fingers loose in Reyes’ hair, whispers _Please. Please, Gabriel, please._

Reyes speeds up, digging in his thumbs when Jack’s dick hits the back of his throat. He swallows Jack’s come, but he’s still saying _Please. Please. Please,_ and Reyes remembers this. 

He drags himself awkwardly to the edge of the bed, finds the slick he’s been keeping there - to massage into the scar tissue, but also to use when he wakes from a dream about Jack. 

He opens Jack slowly, counting the seconds, the breaths, the scars, the heartbeats - Jack gasps and writhes and says _Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel._ He’s hot, he’s hot and flushed with blood, bright and beautiful, and Reyes wants to devour him.

Jack’s hard again, by the time Reyes rolls onto his back. Jack pulls his shorts down over his casts, climbs onto Reyes, heavier than he used to be, but just as strong. His fists and thighs flex as he pushes down - so hot - Reyes fucks up into him, straining his legs, and Jack bears down again, pinning him. 

_Please,_ Jack says, _let me._

So Reyes does. He lets Jack ride him, looking up at his bloodshot eyes, his red wound, until he’s the one gasping, writhing, coming, and Jack pulls himself off with Reyes’ dick softening inside him. 

Jack slumps over him, sticky and spent, sinks his teeth slowly into Reyes’ shoulder. Reyes returns the favour, sucking a mark just below his collarbone.

He falls asleep after Jack wipes them both, gently, clean, and settles in next to him, breath slow and even. 

He tries to stay awake - because the last time this happened, Jack was gone when he woke up, and he can’t ask him to stay, can’t think of anything to say - but he sleeps, body sinking into blackness.

***

Jack is still there, when he wakes up. His eyes are clear again, and he’s watching Reyes. He’s got a hand on Reyes’ chest. 

Reyes reaches up, brushes his thumb over the cut on his head - the blood flakes off, skin totally healed. He cups Jack’s cheek, feeling the stubble and skin and bone underneath. Jack turns his head, kisses his palm. Reyes rakes his fingers through Jack’s hair, and takes a breath. Jack’s face creases, suddenly, in grief. He rolls onto his back, hand sliding away from Reyes’ heart. 

_What?_ asks Reyes. 

_Waiting for you to tell me we gotta stop._

This had been a nice morning. For the space of forty seconds, Reyes had forgotten about his whole life.

 _Why don’t you tell me to stop?_ Reyes asks, a little aggressive.

_Not as smart as you._

Reyes kinda wants to hit him.

_What do you want, Jack? You wanna announce - hey, remember my commanding officer who fucking disappeared into a non-existent black ops agency which the UN definitely isn’t running? He’s my subordinate now, and a great lay._

_Why would we announce anything? It’s no one’s business._

_Because otherwise, you, Overwatch Strike Commander, are consorting with either a subordinate or a war criminal in secret._

_You’re not a criminal,_ Jack says, angry.

 _Doesn’t matter what it is, Jack, it’s how it looks. You wanted a normal life, shoulda never left Indiana. Never become an inspirational fucking figurehead._ Never laid in a too small bed with Gabriel Reyes, never pressed his thigh hotly against Reyes’, never left a bruise in the shape of his teeth on Reyes’ shoulder. 

_Don’t want a normal life,_ says Jack, eyes wide. _I just want you._

Reyes glares at him. _Well, that’s bullshit. You want to help people, you want to protect Overwatch and the world? You wanna be a hero? Of course you do. This is the price._

Jack’s mouth goes mulish. _Shouldn’t be._

Fucking Jack Morrison and his shoulds, his maybes, his ifs. _But it is._

_Why did you fuck me then?_ he asks, staring at the ceiling. _Last night, or ever?_

He’s got Reyes there. 

_I’m not as smart as I pretend to be, Jack._

Jack huffs, presses his hands to his eyes. _You said - back when Overwatch first started, you said you thought one of us would be dead by now._

_I’m still surprised we’re not._

_But that’s,_ he rolls toward Reyes again, wraps an arm around his waist, throws a leg over his, pushes his face into Reyes’ throat, _that’s it. If you die, and I hadn’t - if we didn’t - Gabriel, I -_

 _Yeah, I know._ Gabriel puts a hand on the back of his head, closes his eyes, breathes him in. _I know._ He lets Jack’s heart beat against him for a moment. But they are in a secure facility that Jack is supposed the be running, and they cannot lay there forever. _Problem is, it doesn’t matter. Compared to what we’ve done, it doesn’t._

 _Why not?_ Jack asks, breath damp on his neck.

 _I’ve committed a thousand fucking crimes, a million fucking sacrifices, to make,_ he shakes his head, a little, _to make the world a better place, I guess. We’re making an actual fucking difference. We can keep making a difference. But if I lose what I built, if I make you lose what you’ve done - what we did - all the things I did to get here are for nothing. All the people who died for me to be here. If I die without ever seeing you again,_ he tightens his hands on Jack’s body, _that’s a drop in the ocean, Morrison. It doesn’t matter. And if you want to keep your job as a hero, you have to see that. This doesn’t matter._

Jack lets out a long breath, lets go of Reyes, gradually, slides away from him, pulls his hands to himself, looks at Reyes, that same look of grief. _But - I can’t think like that._

Reyes sits up, swings his casts off the bed, leans down and grabs his shirt. _You have to._ He shrugs it on, finds Jack’s pants, holds them out to him. _Let’s go, soldier. People to help._

Jack catches Reyes’ hand, kisses his fingers, eyes closed, lingering. 

Reyes lets it happen, because he’s not as strong as he pretends to be. 

Jack lets go, sits up. _Won’t happen again, will it?_

He says it like an order, not a question. _If anyone asks, we were getting drunk and reminiscing about SEP. You slept on the floor._

He nods, and Reyes doesn’t watch him get dressed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everything is the worst i am the worst


	12. Blackwatch (Decay)

The Talon investigation gets picked up by Overwatch - Lacroix takes it.

Gérard Lacroix is a short, white, French man, kind of an asshole, with what must be a comically played up accent and a dozen successful operations under his belt. Reyes isn’t happy about Overwatch taking over the investigation, but Lacroix is the least useless person to be on the case. 

He sends Reyes regular reports, which Reyes expected he’d have to ask for - Lacroix’s reputation is not for sharing.

***

Jack talks to him a little less, maybe. In terms of policy, nothing changes.

They all keep working.

***

Next Halloween, Wilhelm asks him what happened. 

_What do you mean?_

_Do not be foolish, Gabriel. Between yourself and Jack, there has been some falling out. You are still friends?_

_Yeah,_ Reyes shrugs. This is much too serious a conversation to be having while they’re both in costume, and McCree is armwrestling Lindholm. _We’re busy._

Wilhelm shakes his head, but Ziegler insists he join in a pumpkin carving competition, and Reyes doesn’t have to deal with it. 

***

Things are busier. Overwatch has over a thousand agents, Blackwatch has nearly a hundred, which is a lot for a covert goddamn organisation, but they’re always shielded by Overwatch, Overwatch’s ops, Overwatch’s spending, which is enormous. 

They’re getting bloated, Reyes realises. They’re getting sloppy, maybe overconfident. For all the anti-interventionist policy, they’re getting increasingly like a new nation, the Overwatch empire.

***

Ten months into his investigation, as soon as it looks like Lacroix might be making some progress, his wife disappears. 

Blackwatch is suddenly back on the case. 

Reyes looks at photos of Amélie Lacroix, Haiti born, Paris educated, gymnast and instructor, black, beautiful, built like a supermodel. She must have towered over her husband, who is weeping, now, in the command room.

_She would have fought them - she would have given them hell._

_Any luck tracing the message?_ Reyes asks Morrison. 

Lacroix had received an encrypted message before he was even aware his wife was missing - _Stop tracking Talon and your wife will remain alive._

Morrison shakes his head. 

_Send it to Magsaysay. Lacroix, had anything happened in the investigation? Anything new? Any shifts?_

Lacroix slaps the table. _Why are you here? Asking me? Why aren’t you looking for her?_

Reyes doesn’t raise his voice. _There are people looking for her. I’m trying to make sure they’re looking in the right places. I know you started a new push into connections between Talon and Crimean separatists, and you busted those Singapore narcos last month, but I want to hear it from you, get your perspective._

 _What have I been sending him reports for,_ Lacroix demands of Morrison, _if he doesn’t read them?_

Morrison doesn’t look at Reyes. _Lacroix, you heard him. He’s read them. He wants your perspective. Your perspective is meant to be valuable, and I suggest you get some very fast._ Reyes hasn’t actually seen Jack being a professional hardass outside of combat. He’s good at it. _Commander Reyes is trying to do his job, so that we can find your wife as quickly as possible. It would be useful for you do the same._

Lacroix shrinks, nods, starts talking.

***

They find her in a fortnight. 

It doesn’t make any sense, and Reyes hates it. They had already swept that part of Bar-Sur-Loup, so she must have been moved there. She had only four guards, no failsafe - no bomb vest or anything. 

She’s brought to the Watch Point in Nice sobbing, asking to see her husband. Reyes orders her into solitary.

 _She gets kidnapped by an organisation rumoured to be involved in brainwashing and we just - pick her up?_

_One of our soldiers was killed during that pick up,_ Jack says. Reyes doesn’t know everyone in Overwatch anymore, but he’ll check the logs after, see who it was, pray for them.

_And four of theirs. Doesn’t mean she’s not a plant._

Morrison nods. _We’ll keep her in observation a month or so. Get the psychs in._

_Do they know what to look for? Are we admitting out loud to anyone that we might be dealing with some MK Ultra shit here?_

_Keep it need to know. We don’t want this getting around. You brief the psych team. Make sure they understand the necessity of confidentiality._ Jack looks down at his tablet. _I’ll brief Lacroix._

Morrison’s been running interference between him and Lacroix. He’s backed all of Reyes’ suggestions. _Strike Commander?_ Jack looks up. Blue eyes, the beginnings of crows feet. Still pretty. Reyes can’t remember precisely how to thank people, at this moment. _Glad you’re in command._

A year ago, Jack might have smiled at that. He might have thanked Reyes - Jack’s always been good at thanking people. 

Instead, he nods. It’s not unlike the nods he used to give when Reyes caught him staring, which he hasn’t done in years. 

Reyes leaves to room before he tries to say anything else.

***

Reyes watches several evaluations with Amélie, watches over old footage of her gymnast days, interviews and routines, reads the messages between her and her husband which Lacroix handed over with a sort of tragic yet smug warning that there was sexually explicit content. 

Amélie Lacroix, before and after the kidnapping, appears to be intelligent, competitive, slightly mean, particularly about people she considers less intelligent than herself, deeply in love with her asshole husband, impatient and very flexible.

 _He was sending this shit during work hours,_ Magsaysay scrolls through pages of chatter about how they planned to spend their weekend. _Sitting in meetings, sexting his hot wife. All my wife texts me about is bread. This man is living._

 _And now his colleagues and boss get to read it,_ says Morrison, who had been hovering at the back of the room. 

_And his hot wife is in holding until we figure out if she’s a threat or not,_ says Reyes.

 _Yes, sir. Sirs,_ Magsaysay straightens, gets back to work.

***

After a month, including counselling, hypnosis, MRI and CT scans, as well as Gérard Lacroix complaining to anyone who will listen that Reyes will not even let him see his wife, Amélie Lacroix goes home.

 _We can’t hold her on a rumour,_ Morrison tells him, and Reyes nods. 

He watches the reunion, just in case. Amélie holds her husband’s face, kisses him, calls him cher. She does tower over him.

 _A happy ending,_ says Amari. _They do happen._

This isn’t an ending, thinks Reyes. _He won’t be working on Talon anymore?_

 _I don’t even know if he’ll be working for us,_ says Jack. _He implied he might retire._

Reyes is surprised. _You had anyone retire yet?_

Morrison shakes his head. 

Amari says, _I’ve thought about it._ Reyes and Jack both look at her. _Oh, not seriously. Certainly not anytime soon. Just - eventually, it would be nice to stop - killing people. I have to set a good example for Fareeha at some point._ Reyes has heard about the arguments they've been having, and has declined to intervene in case Amari murders him outright for encouraging her daughter. _Don’t you ever think about life after this?_

 _Wouldn’t know what it looked like,_ says Morrison.

Reyes nods. _In Blackwatch, being retired means something different._

 _Ha. Perhaps I simply want a life without euphemism,_ Amari says.

***

Two days later, Gérard Lacroix is dead and Amélie is in the wind. 

Official story is Talon came back, kidnapped her again, killed him. They don’t have solid evidence on anything - Lacroix refused guards and a deeply suspect power cut means they’ve got no footage.

 _This won’t fall on you. You did your job,_ says Morrison, on a videocall. 

Reyes nods. _Gonna look at security policies for lead agents?_

_Send me your recommendations. We can’t fire everyone who has a spouse, though._

_Pity. Magsaysay keeps complaining about hers._ She doesn’t, but Reyes is trying to make a joke, because this is the sixth agent death in eighteen months, and Reyes has fucking lost the ability to talk to Jack at all since last February. 

Jack just sighs. _We’ll consider the hiring policy, maybe._

 _He was joking, Jack,_ says Amari, in the corner of the camera. 

When Amari’s on his side, Reyes knows things are fucked. 

_We did everything we could._ Reyes tells him. _We couldn’t hold her on rumours, but we won’t let this happen again, Morrison._

 _No,_ says Morrison, reaching to terminate the call. _We won’t._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> widowmaker is black, fight me. also, i was a sort of holding off on finishing the story to see if the sombra reveal was gonna do any thing to canon. ha! ha ha ha!


	13. Blackwatch - Undercover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I can’t recall a mission so you can come to a funeral.

Some things get easier. 

Talking to Jack doesn’t, but dealing with the fact that they don’t talk does. 

***

When Blackwatch turns ten, Reyes in Colombia with McCree, in deep cover. He leaves Banda in charge of the base, because she doesn’t take shit. 

_Do I get to redecorate?_

_If you clean out the evidence locker._

She shudders. _Pass._

***

They take a two bedroom apartment above a restaurant and speak only Spanish.

He teaches McCree how to sew without it looking like someone took a staple gun to his clothes. He plays a borrowed guitar in a bar, makes contacts. He reads Pérez-Reverte, because McCree finds a beat up paperback of La Reina del Sur in a stall that also sells belts, shoes, marijuana. 

_Esta bien._

_Te dije, jefe._

They are Emiliano and Jose for three and a half months, and then they kill four men and two women, make it look like they turned on each other, destabilising the human trafficking network in the region, and leave. He leaves the paperback.

***

When he gets to open his regular comms box, there are seven messages from Banda marked urgent. 

Overwatch lost five people in a botched hostage recovery, including Ana Amari. 

He finds out three weeks late for the funeral. 

He calls Jack from the airport. 

_Sitrep?_ Morrison barks, because the most likely reason Reyes is calling on a secure line at this point is because something’s gone FUBAR.

 _Mission complete, no issues._ He swallows. _Just heard about Ana, and the others._

Jack breathes down the line. _Two Talon snipers. They picked us off. Ana, she - wouldn’t get out of there until we were safe._ Reyes watches the movement of the airport, parents and children, couples, colleagues, elderly men playing chess on a portable board. _She went after the last shooter alone._

_What’s happening with Fareeha?_

_Already back in Egypt, with her grandparents. They - said they don’t want any attention._

Away from everyone she knows, but a fucking international task force can’t raise a teenager. Reyes looks at McCree, shakes his head. McCree pulls his hat over his eyes, settles his head into his chest, closes off.

 _I’m sorry,_ says Reyes. _That I wasn’t there._

_I can’t recall a mission so you can come to a funeral._

_Not what I mean._ This conversation is somehow going worse than Reyes expected.

 _Come to Zurich,_ Jack says. _We’ll do a full briefing._

***

The full briefing ends up with Morrison and Reyes’ first professional argument. It’s taken nineteen years of working together, which is a pretty good run, all things considered.

_No one saw her get hit?_

_We had a dozen civilians to extract. We had three confirmed fatalities, Mahab was bleeding out, Amari ignored orders to disengage, turned off her comms -_

_No one heard her get hit?_

_The last readings we had from the cybernetic eye indicated elevated heart rate, and then collision, Reyes. She was shot in the head._

_No one found her body?_

_I saw the readings, and we got in the air. The next recons found nothing. I went back as soon as I could, and we found nothing - the buildings were rubble and all the bodies were gone, theirs and ours. We don’t know if it was Talon or scavengers._

_It’s not impossible that -_

_Reyes, stop._ Morrison hasn’t interrupted Reyes in - years. Since they were in SEP, arguing about the merits of different choke holds. _She was shot. In the head. You and I have both seen that._

Either she’s dead, or she’s in Talon custody, which makes her a threat, and Reyes’d rather she be dead. Jack too, it seems like.

 _I don’t mean to imply anything, sir,_ Reyes starts. 

_You and McCree are due some leave._ Jack looks away from him. _Take it._

***

When he tells McCree about the order, he just nods, says _Be back in a week,_ and disappears off everyone’s radars, which is disconcerting.

 _He coulda done this any time in the last,_ Reyes counts it up in his head, _five years._

_But he didn’t,_ says Banda. _Besides, he left his guns._

More importantly, he left his books, so Reyes doesn’t worry. 

***

Reyes picks an off the grid ID and takes a slow route to Egypt. 

Cargo plane, couple of trains, camel drawn cab, canola powered cab.

It’s about thirty hours of travel, and he only notices his tail in the last two.

This means he diverts, out into the heavy Cairo night. 

He likes Cairo. Some cities these days, Zurich, Beijing, LA, are less places where people live than tall accretions of money and technology. 

Cairo is hot and bright and full of noise, even late, easy to double back and dogleg and confuse people. 

Reyes finds a shitty hotel, puts some cash on the counter and takes a room with no view, draws the curtain. 

Jack knocks, the knock that means he’s alone.

Reyes lets him in - wearing a grey beanie, a green keffiyeh.

_You can’t sneak up on the person who taught you stealth, Morrison._

_I knocked, didn’t I?_

He stands awkwardly in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, Reyes realises.

_Where does Overwatch think you are?_

_On recon in Sakaka with Unwin and Tahar._

_Where do Unwin and Tahar think you are?_

_Told them I wanted to see Fareeha._

_Do you?_

Jack is offended. _I came to see her. I spotted you in Geisum. I thought - maybe it’ll be less bad if there’s two of us._

_Why would it be bad?_

_Because I’m the reason she buried an empty casket, Reyes._ He looks angry, sick. _I had to send her away. She still - she said she wanted to join Overwatch._

_You gonna let her?_

He widens his eyes. _I don’t wish this job on anyone._

 _Are you here to make her feel better,_ Reyes says slowly, _or you?_

Morrison laughs, short and harsh. Reyes just watches him. 

_I should go._ He turns to leave. 

_Jack -_

_No, this was - a bad idea -_

_You want me to tell you it’s not your fault Amari’s gone?_ Jack stops at the door. _And Wenham, and Singh, and Heyou, and Sedlak? I can’t tell you that. Because it is. You ordered them there. You’re responsible._

 _You think you would have saved them?_ It’s a challenge. His shoulders are knotted, fists clenched. 

_No. I’ve killed a lot of people - with weapons, with orders. We’re soldiers. It’s what happens._

Jack rounds, and advances on Reyes. _Don’t pretend - don’t you dare pretend,_ he stops, a half foot from Reyes, _like you don’t take every death personally._

 _I’m not,_ says Reyes, level. _I do. I’m just - not surprised when it happens. I’m surprised when it doesn’t._

 _I remember._ Jack shakes his head, a little. For a second, Reyes sees him nineteen, too keen, getting floored by one of Reyes’ punches and coming back for more. _I remember how you’re a goddamn psychopath._

For a moment, Reyes wants to give him the fight he’s begging for. 

He could form a fist and break that pretty nose, pin him to a wall and make him apologise, give him something nice and solid to rail against.

 _You got a goddamn nerve, Morrison._ Reyes raises his hands, slowly. Jack’s eyes flicker, but he doesn’t move. _Wearing this,_ he says, tugging off the keffiyeh, _makes you stick out like a hood ornament. I can give you something._

_You want me to walk out of your hotel wearing one of your shirts?_ Jack says, flatly.

Reyes walks into his tiny bathroom, starts running the sink. _That you’re even here is exactly the kind of shady shit I always wanted to avoid. I was going to dye this for you, so you look less like a fucking tourist._ He comes back out, ducks down to his bag, finds the dye, stands. _If you want._

 _I shouldn’t be here,_ says Jack, quiet. 

_You can leave, if you want, with your green scarf. Come back in the morning and we’ll see Fareeha. You could go back to Sakaka right now._ He extends the keffiyeh in one hand and the dye in the other, as non-threatening, as innocent, as blameless as he could possibly be while inviting Jack Morrison into a piece of highly compromising stupidity.

Jack stares at him for a moment. _We shouldn’t be here,_ he says.

_If anyone managed to follow us, we’ve probably got bigger problems._

Morrison shakes his head again. Reyes thinks he might leave. It would be fine if he left. They already barely talk. Reyes is ready to turn away, but then Jack takes a step towards him, then another, then goes past him into the bathroom to turn off the tap. _C’mon then._

***

Morrison watches him submerge the keffiyeh in black water, watches him wring it out and hang it over the towel rack, watches him clean the sink and dry his hands, just leaning against the bathroom door like this isn’t the worst idea either of them have have in years.

Reyes has almost talked himself out of it by the time he’s done, but then he turns around, and Jack is crying, silently, tears rolling down his sunburnt face. 

_This is fucked up, isn’t it?_

Reyes raises a hand, slowly, brushes tears away. _Life is fucked up, Jack._

Jack closes his eyes. 

***

There’s noise outside the window, but the air is quiet between them. 

Where they rushed in Toronto, and Edinburgh, and most of the time back in SEP, they move glacially slow. 

They undress slowly, kiss slowly, get very gradually into bed. 

He holds Jack’s face, kisses his eyelids, his cheeks, his nose and mouth, while Jack digs his fingers into Reyes’ hips and just holds on. 

They rut their dicks together, Jack’s eyes very dark in the low light of the hotel room. 

Reyes pulls Jack off with one spit-wet hand, and Jack curls around himself, muttering _Please._

He shoves his face into Reyes’ neck, bites down. Reyes sees spots, claws at the back of his head. 

Jack gasps, after he’s come, then immediately bows down, swallows Reyes’ dick, like he was always so good at. 

Reyes swears, runs a hand through Jack’s hair. Jack presses his fingers up behind Reyes’ balls, slowly, slowly, and he comes too.

Reyes falls asleep holding Jack closer than is comfortable in the small, hot night. 

***

When Reyes wakes, Jack is on the other side of the bed, not touching Reyes at all.

 _She wanted to retire,_ he says.

Not for the first time, Reyes thinks that Jack’s head is a terrible place to live. _Do you?_

_I used to think so. But no one in my family ever did._

_Neither. My mother worked in a car part factory until she was too sick. My grandfather was still giving guitar lessons when the Omnics came._

Jack nods. _Dad worked the farm until he died of stroke in ‘56. Mom’s still sheriff._

_Your mother’s a sheriff?_

_Yeah, I know._

Reyes can’t imagine what Alondra Awray would have done with this information. _How did this never come up?_

Jack smiles at the ceiling. _You didn’t need more reasons to hate me._

 _Do I need reasons to hate you now?_ It’s meant to be a joke, but Reyes knows it’s the wrong thing as soon as he says it.

Morrison sits up. _It’s nearly dawn. We should go see Fareeha._

They look at each other, over the gulf of the bed, each old and tired. Reyes wonders if they’ll do this again. 

Jack looks away first. 

***

He wraps the black keffiyeh around his throat.

***

It’s another canola powered cab to get in the radius of the address neither of them are meant to have. When they get to the right suburb and start walking, Reyes spots a distinctive fucking silhouette. 

Jesse McCree gives them a jaunty little wave.

 _Wondering if you’d come along,_ he says to Jack, and saunters ahead. 

_Did you know he’d be here?_ Jack asks. 

_No. I should’ve._

They sit themselves at the end of Fareeha’s grandparent’s block and wait. 

0802, Fareeha Amari appears on the street, school uniform, backpack, brand new tattoo under her eye. 

She’s taller than the last time Reyes saw her.

She walks straight to them. 

_Like the eye, hermanita,_ Jesse calls.

 _It’s called an udjat._ She marches up to him, puts her arms around him, a quick, spiky hug. She looks sideways at Reyes and Morrison, does not hug them, but nods a greeting. _You don’t all have to check up on me._

 _We didn’t mean to. Just didn’t talk to each other about what we were doing first,_ Reyes admits.

_You can walk me to school if you like, but Tayta will get mad if you try to come back for lunch._

_I’d like a walk,_ says Jack.

***

They walk, and she tells them about school, and her grandparents, and Cairo. She’s going to join the army, apparently. 

She hugs Jesse again at the school gate, and then, quickly, Morrison, then Reyes. He rests his hand between her shoulder blades, for a second. 

_Goodbye,_ she says, formally. _Travel safe._

 _You too,_ says Jesse. 

They watch her walk away. 

_Y’all want breakfast?_

_I’ve got to go,_ Jack looks at his watch. _I was never here, neither were you._

 _Copy,_ says Reyes. _Go on then._

Jack nods to them both, flags a cab. 

_Thought you two were fighting?_ says Jesse, as they watch his cab disappear.

Reyes could deny it. _Temporary truce. Fareeha’s a DMZ._

_Presently._

_Yeah. Presently._

They eat fresh bread and black coffee, and then McCree says, _Well, I got another four days of leave. See you back at base,_ and slides out of sight faster than someone dressed so preposterously should.

***

Reyes goes back to his hotel room, uncertain what to do.

He lights a candle, draws a little skull - it’s August, but sometimes these things are necessary

 _Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte, por favor guíame. Creo -_

He looks at his hands, smart enough to play guitar and pull a trigger and dumb enough to keep grabbing at things he can’t keep.

_Creo que la cagué._

***

He ends up back at base, kicking Banda out of his office. 

_You’re on leave, Commander._

_Didn’t take._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok there's two chapters left, please hold my hand as we jump right into the pit of despair


	14. Blackwatch (Transformation)

The next Halloween, the first without Amari or Fareeha, is subdued and strange. There’s a lot of people he doesn’t know. 

The day after, he prays for Ana Amari, who wore her faith on her face. For Aleks Wenham, Ravit Singh, Ayse Heyou, Vidan Sedlak. For Jack Morrison’s father. For his own mother and grandfather. 

He tells Awray and Russo about Jack’s mother, and he can almost hear them laugh. 

***

He and Jack still don’t talk. They only argue. 

Maybe it was Ana Amari that kept them from arguing for so long.

They argue about recruitment policies. 

They argue about applications of experimental technology in the field. 

These two come to a head when Blackwatch recover a mostly dead kid from a fucking ninja clan in Hanamura, and Ziegler builds him a robot body, and Jack recruits him.

_It’s not that different to having prosthetics._

Reyes stares at him. _People can ask for or decide not to get prosthetics. He ask to be made into that? Into something that works for you?_

_He asked us to save his life - and then he asked how he could repay us._

_And you said no payment is necessary because we’re taxpayer funded?_

_He asked to serve. He has no one to ask permission from, because his family tried to have him killed._

Reyes doesn’t immediately know how to outline how deeply fucking different this is without yelling. He takes a deep breath.

_I offered McCree a choice. No one had a gun to his head, or a - samurai sword, or a scalpel. Did you give him a choice? To become a weapon? Was he sound of body and mind when he made that choice, or was he a scared kid thinking he was about to die?_

Morrison raises his eyebrows. _Should we have let him?_

Reyes shakes his head. _I’m not gonna say I’m comfortable with letting a kid die, or with making a ninja cyborg who has a life debt to your organisation, because that’s literally insane, what you’ve done is insane - but I’m really not comfortable with how fucking close Mercy is to curing death._

 _Sorry, are you pro-death?_ says Jack, dry. _This explains everything._

_Don’t be flippant, Morrison. You cure death, you commodify life. It stops being the leveller, the only certain thing in the world, it becomes - something you can buy off._

Jack tips his head, considering. _Angela wouldn’t sell -_

Ever the optimist. _It’s not about her. If it exists, someone will take it, remake it, use it to their benefit. For power or profit. We’ve seen it._

He looks at his desk. _If it exists - when it exists, because we’ve seen more sci-fi come true than not - I’d rather we control it._

Reyes gapes, just for a moment. _Do you hear yourself? Right now?_

_You want a corporation to hold dominion over life and death?_

Reyes sighs. _I want you to stop trying to distract me from the goddamn cyborg you made yourself._

 _If it was McCree,_ says Jack, _or any of your agents - what would you say?_

_They’re already agents. We’ve got a DNR box to tick, we can add a do not turn into a robot. But they signed up for this._

_So did Shimada. He can leave anytime._

Technically, all of them could leave anytime. Technically, Jack Morrison could quit this job today and go be mayor - in the same town as his mother is sherrif. Technically, Reyes could go - teach guitar, or fucking - join the circus or something. Doesn’t mean they’re going to.

 _Suppose so,_ is what he says out loud.

Jack is frustrated. _Do you want him? In Blackwatch? Would that make you feel any better?_

It’s not about how I feel, he wants to say. It’s not about me at all.

Instead, he says, _Sure. You got the time traveller and the space gorilla, I get the cyborg ninja to match the fucking cowboy. That makes perfect sense._

***

Thing is, Reyes does understand why Morrison’s looking into death-proof recruits. 

They’ve had more agents getting sniped, getting disappeared, listed as MIA and turning up with hands cut off, tongues cut out. 

Superstorms and earthquakes come in, fallout floats up from Australia. 

Emmaline Banda gets her neck broken in a backstreet of Hyderabad. Nick McGuire drowns in Northwest Canada. Sonam Tsemo and Priyanka Shresta never return from an info drop, and two bodies that match their dental work get fished out of the Irrawaddy. Malia Oluo dies in Reyes’ arms, and she’d only been with Blackwatch a year, she’s only twenty two, doesn’t remember the world before the war at all. Nelson Schaal, ex-Mossad, nearly sixty, his second after Banda, dies in the same firefight, dies grinning and bloody.

Magsaysay retires, takes a corporate job, sends him photos of her kid.

***

 _McCree?_ he asks. _I need a second._

_Por supuesto._

Por supuesto, he says.

***

Shimada makes Reyes uncomfortable. It’s not the sword - non-standard weapons are pretty much standard these days. It’s not the fact that all of his limbs and most of his vertebrae are bionic - half the people Reyes knows are augmented, including himself. It’s not the fact that he barely talks - Reyes remembers being his age, and being careful. He’s a good agent, but gives too much of himself - like he doesn’t matter.

 _You gotta slow down,_ Reyes tells him, after one mission, when he’s cleaning the sword, which Reyes has seen slice through steel. 

_Is my work unsatisfactory, Commander?_

_You know it’s not._ It’s tricky to read him, what with the faceplate and being a fucking ninja. _What does this mean again?_ He points at the writing on the sword. _Kiarama told me it said ‘Look out if you’re a bitch,’ but he learnt all his kanji out of comic books._

There’s a little shift that might be a laugh. He runs a cloth along the sword one last time, holds it up so the blade faces himself. _It reads ‘Caution: death comes to those who fight without honour’._

 _Well,_ Reyes folds his arms, _that’s a real nice sentiment, but death comes to us all. You had a brush with it, don’t think you have to rush back into her arms._

Shimada looks at him - probably, his face tilts towards Reyes’ at the very least. He nods. _Sir._

***

In Havana, he and McCree are meant to be dealing with some recovered nuclear weaponry. 

Halfway through a negotiation with Rubio, the man who allegedly owns all the uranium, a flunky gets a message and whispers in his ear.

_Una persona quiere conocerlo, señor Negron._

_¿Qué tipo de persona?_

_El tipo a que no le dices no,_ smiles Rubio. _Le sugiero que no lo hagas tampoco._

***

They get left in the room a while. 

For a good five minutes, Reyes is convinced that this is the end. That he missed something so big, so obvious, that they’re probably pumping poison into the room right now.

When a key scrapes the fire escape door, he and Jesse both draw. A kid walks in.

She’s no more than thirteen, underfed, braids, black clothes.

 _La señorita Idaho necesita hablar. En el tejado. Solo tu -_ she points at Reyes. _El otro se queda conmigo._

 _Boss,_ says McCree, slowly.

Reyes thinks it over, lowers his gun. _Stay here. Shoot her if you feel threatened._

The kid smiles. McCree squints at her.

Reyes walks past her, looks back at Jesse for a moment, then pushes through the door.

***

 _Cap,_ nods Caitlin Northman. She’s aged, shaved her head, lost weight she couldn’t afford to lose. She’s wearing three weapons that he can see.

_Thought you might be dead._

_Sometimes I think I am,_ she says, and he believes it. _I’ve been looking for the guy._

Reyes breathes in and out very slowly. _You killed that guy._

 _I wanted the guy above him. The guy who set him up. Who wanted Adawe out of the way. Turned out to be a lot of them. Lots of different places. Still haven’t got to the top._ She tips her head, and the moonlight sets her scars in relief. _You can’t trust Overwatch._

_Jack Morrison runs Overwatch._

_Jack Morrison thinks there’s a hero and a villain in every story, Cap. He doesn’t see shit that’s under his nose._

He can’t argue with that.

_Why you telling me?_

_Warning. Keep your ears open. Watch your back. You might get a message,_ she rolls her shoulders back, _from me, or the little shadow._

_That’s the kid working for you?_

_She doesn’t work for me._

He nods, even though he doesn’t entirely understand. Northman’s staring at the sky.

 _She wanted kids. Alondra. I said I wasn’t sure. Maybe next year._ Northman looks through him. _How many years has it been, Cap?_

_Fourteen. Coming up on fifteen._

She sighs, takes two strides towards the edge of the roof. _Feels longer,_ she says, and steps off it.

When he looks over the side, she’s ziplining off into the night.

***

He goes back downstairs, where McCree and the kid are still having a staring competition. 

_ Hemos terminado. _

_Ta luego,_ she says, and leaves. 

_What the flying fuck was all of that?_

_What was what?_

McCree raises his eyebrows, affronted. _Really? So, if I say Ms Idaho -_

 _Don’t._ He hasn’t kept things from Jesse before, but this is too much. There’s too much at stake. Jesse McCree has too strong a vigilante justice streak to be involved in investigating his own organisation in any kind of covert manner. It’s not worth it. _Nothing happened. I never left the room. We did the deal. We walked out. Do you read me?_

_We did the deal. We walked out. You certainly didn’t go see some goddamn old girlfriend and leave me here with the creepiest kid I’ve ever laid eyes on. She kept humming._

Reyes ignores this. _Do you. Read me._

Jesse raises his chin. _Yessir._

***

Second Halloween without Amari, Reyes makes sure he’s on a mission. 

His Día de los Muertos is in Khmer territory. There’s an order of Nepalese nuns who run schools and hospitals they’re trying to keep supplied, and he may have to kill one of them - corruption gets to nuns too. 

He climbs a few floors up a bombed out block of flats, finds a mostly intact room. There are plants growing in it - someone’s old window boxes gone wild. 

He doesn’t have his guitar, but he makes a little pile of orange flowers, pulls fresh fruit, cinnamon, chocolate, a candle from his bag, sings what he can remember of his mother’s favourites, _what a wicked way to treat the girl who loves you_ , crooning low, tuneless.

He hears a noise at his left - from the open space that was once a wall - he points his gun - it’s a black and white owl. 

They stare at each other, and he lowers his gun slowly.

***

There’s a situation in Siberia.

Villamoor disappears. McCree gets his arm torn off and nearly bleeds out in the snow. 

Reyes kills five assailants in mech suits, waits for transport, curled around Jesse, muttering, _Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte, por favor protégeme y lo mio, por favor cuida este vaquero idiota, por favor déjalo tener una vida mejor._

McCree is unconcious, pale, still breathing, though he’s missing a lot of him and his temperature's dropping. _Él es un buen hombre y se merece una vida mejor._

***

He sits next to McCree’s hospital bed. Ziegler’s put a bionic rib cage and arm on him. Morrison comes by, gets his report. 

_Villamoor’s MIA?_

_I didn’t see what happened - he just stopped responding to comms. And then the mechs arrived._

Morrison nods. _You did the right thing - keeping him cold, reducing the blood loss. Good thing we didn’t add the “do not turn into a robot” box, huh?_

Reyes is meant to laugh at this. He can’t, though. 

In the room, with the owl, he had bowed his head. He had thought, I will die soon. 

Now he worries that the message was not about him, but someone else. 

He looks at Morrison, across McCree, and nods, absently.

***

When McCree wakes up, he looks at his new arm and laughs a little. 

_Villamoor?_

_MIA._

_Huh._

Reyes taps him on the back of the hand. 

_Lo siento que deje esto ocurrir ._

_No te preocupes._ McCree shakes his head. _No point in it. It’s done._

***

The more the thinks about it, the more Reyes is convinced that what happened in Siberia was someone intentionally trying to eliminate him. Him and McCree. Not just disrupt their op, get rid of a competitor, but to kill him. 

The only people who would have known where they were are other agents. Blackwatch, Overwatch. Both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm just posting the last two chapters now because i can't bear to look at them any longer


	15. Switzerland

As soon as he is strong enough to get back to work, Jesse McCree disappears. His guns, his belt buckle, his hat and books are all gone. 

Reyes understands. It’s annoying, but he understands.

***

Jack Morrison doesn’t understand. _He’s gone? He didn’t - say anything? He didn’t explain? Can you track him?_

 _Nope. Shimada handed in his papers, too. Gonna find himself, apparently._ Reyes is - not proud, because he didn’t have a lot to do with it. Annoyed, because he’s running low on people he can trust. Impressed, maybe. 

_This doesn’t concern you? Losing agents?_

_I don’t think it’s my management style, if that’s what you mean. They’re feeling like there’s no future in the work, apart from ending up a scapegoat._

The press has been increasingly mean about Strike Commander Jack Morrison and the Overwatch empire. There have been files leaked, no one knows from where, some about surveillance metadata, some about arson, one about what might be torture, depending on your definition.

Morrison frowns. It’s flattened by the screen, looks insincere. _Of course that won’t happen._

 _I’ll let McCree know, if and when I see him,_ says Reyes, and terminates the call.

***

Catrina Reyes raised her son on the classics. He knows all about getting sold out.

With McCree gone, he can spend more time figuring out exactly how bad things are. He walks the halls, streets, stalls, of the world Overwatch made, dispenses threats and bribes and violence, and once, in Tashkent, a very sarcastic slow clap. 

He thinks about how Villamoor was with them since the beginning. How Oluo and Schaal died. About Amélie Lacroix and the blackouts that covered her alleged kidnappings. That Nepalese nun. Liao and Yazdi. 

The protests mount. 

He doesn’t pray. He hasn’t since Jesse lay in the snow - he feels a little like he’s burnt something out. 

***

He gets called into Zurich at the beginning of October. 

It’s the first time he’s seen Jack in the flesh since McCree was in recovery - seven months. 

Seven months, and Morrison can’t look him in the eye, sitting Reyes down on the other side of his desk.

 _These rumours,_ Jack says, _they are damaging. We need to protect the reputation of Overwatch, so we can continue to -_

_Morrison, did you rehearse this fucking speech?_

Jack snaps his mouth shut.

_You and I both know what’s happening, and we both know it’s bullshit._

Jack pulls up a folder, puts it on screen - news reports next to mission reports. _It’s not bullshit that Blackwatch has been killing civilians._

_No, but it’s bullshit that the UN is denying knowledge of it. All of this has been reported and approved as acceptable collateral for years. Decades, almost._

Morrison stares. _That’s not - that can’t be true._

 _There’s a reason I had my own council meetings, Strike Commander. They’re gonna deny that too. They wanted to keep you clean, probably because you’re so fucking bad at lying. But I’m telling you now - it’s not going to happen. You are not going to put me on trial and walk the fuck away, with the UN holding your hand like they didn’t fund and approve of every single thing we did._

_You - your organisation has been killing civilians, acquiring weaponry and controlling criminals. How could you expect to get away with that? How could you expect anyone to support that for long?_

Reyes wants to laugh, wants to punch Jack, wants to walk away from this whole fucking shitstorm and never look back.

 _Like Overwatch isn’t full of bad apples._ He pulls a drive out of his pocket, drops it on the table, folders and files fanning out automatically. Reports, photos, messages, videos. Nearly a year’s worth of research, carefully collected. _You never could see the shit that was under your nose. I spent my fucking off hours finding Talon agents all through your personnel. You burn my organisation, I burn yours. And if you try to stop me,_ says Reyes, in all seriousness, _I will kill you myself._

Reyes remembers Jack at twenty one, eyes wide and wondering as he slid his hands along Reyes’ legs. He remembers touching the underside of Jack’s jaw and feeling his pulse there. 

Now Jack looks up from the files with wide eyes, and narrows them. _Why didn’t you come to me?_

His wrist comm buzzes. It buzzes for a long time, a strange pitch, so he looks away from Jack - it’s a message from an unknown source - _hq va a soplar tiene 2.67 minutos_ , and there’s a follow up, one word: _sombra._

He looks up. _Evacuate._

 _What?_ Morrison’s confused.

Reyes stands. _There’s a bomb. Or - bombs, we have two and a half minutes, Morrison, fucking evacuate the facility!_

Jack pulls back a panel on the wall, hits a red button, then just stands there, staring at Reyes.

_You too, Morrison, get the fuck out._

_Thought you wanted me dead._

Reyes looks at his stubborn face, his hard eyes. He thinks about wrapping his hands around Jack’s throat. Letting the blood out of his body. The life leeching out of him. _Not like this_.

Morrison frowns. _This is a ploy. Are there even explosives?_

The building shakes, with one huge, hot ripple. Her timing was off.

 _C’mon, soldier,_ Reyes says, and starts out of the room. 

_We’re not done, Reyes,_ Jack yells, running behind him. 

His phone buzzes again, _científicos atrapados detrás de puertas blindadas de nivel 44_.

Jack is reading something off his eyepiece. _The upper levels are compromised - Reyes, did you do this?_

Reyes stops, spins, shoves Jack against the wall. He just shoves him, too angry to vocalise what he’s angry about - that Jack has so easily fallen into the trap that he’s been falling into his whole fucking life. That Jack assumes there must be a bad guy.

He shoves Jack Morrison against the wall, considers cracking his skull, and instead runs to the stairs. 

_Reyes!_

It’s only a few flights to level forty-four, and he remembers where the blast doors are - but when he gets there, it’s already on fire. He keeps going, down the hall, starts the manual override, scalding his fingers on the metal, gets another message - _30 segundos_ , and thinks, for a moment that she’s fucked it up again - but then he realises. 

People start streaming out of the blast doors, and he lets them. He takes a step towards a reinforced window. He can see the moon, out there. 

He draws his gun. 

If he shoots the window - if he empties the clip, he might be able to - make a path - but if this is what the message meant - _What are you doing, Reyes?_

Reyes turns. Jack Morrison is pointing a pulse rifle at him, like he’s something that needs to be put down.

Then the floor rises, right on time. 

***

  


When Reyes regains consciousness, it’s not in a hospital bed. 

  


It’s pinned under some wall - or roof maybe. 

  


His eyes are full of ash, his lungs are filling with smoke, he feels something poisonous roiling inside of him. 

  


Of course, he thinks. This is how it should be. 

  


***

  


He can’t see anyone else. 

  


Jack might be dead, or fine, or trapped somewhere and blaming Reyes for all of this.

  


Each seems equally likely.

  


***

  


Maybe someone’s alerted the authorities, and the medical help is on it’s way, and he will be better soon, ready to face the show trials, false and true accusations, Jack Morrison’s righteous fucking face. Maybe Jack Morrison’s funeral.

  


Maybe he’ll die. 

  


Maybe he’ll hear his mother sing again, and his grandfather play, _veloz y fatigada_. Maybe he’ll finally, finally be able to rest.

  


*** 

  


He sees, through the haze of blood and ash, a female figure, outlined in light, approaching him from above. Descending from the heavens. 

  


It might be Zeigler in her Valkyrie suit. 

  


It might be Santa Meurte. 

  


He closes his eyes, and prays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. everyone knows that the overwatch timeline is cooked, right? like, who joined what when does not seem to be properly written down anywhere at blizzard. also cooked: the socio-political world building. how the fuck does the economy work in overwatch? where exactly does overwatch get funding for all that wild r'n'd? it's almost like they weren't thinking of these fine details when they built a goofy fps!  
> 2\. Also not what anyone at blizzard was thinking about: how much I would love Gabriel Reyes. I fucking love him. I just wanted to write a story from his perspective.  
> 3\. This is the longest dang thing I’ve ever dang written. Did you know I have never ever played this fucking game and I never will? Harkbus over on tumblr did some good comics, and I fell down a rabbit hole. Please look at those comics, they're exceptionally good: harkbus.tumblr.com/post/150660782059/08282016-part-one-part-two-part-three  
> 4\. Seriously, the lore does not add up, like, at all.  
> 5\. Maybe I’ll write a sequel? Maybe in 6-7 years these idiots will sit down and have a conversation like adults. Maybe Blizzard’ll release info about Sombra before I lose interest!  
> 6\. Thanks again to thundara for talking me through the characters of a game I've never played, and identifying some common white boy micro-agressions! To valcries for helping w/ spanish! To everyone who read this long sad story about why military-industrial complexes are bad.

**Author's Note:**

> final note - i got the title from this poem: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2016/20160926/geater-p.shtml
> 
> also i thought about making a mix for this, but instead you should all just go get flying lotus' 2014 album "you're dead!", which is about exactly what you think. 
> 
> ALSO also: liripip made art for thiiiis: http://liripip.tumblr.com/post/154912607797/time-for-an-illustrated-fic-rec


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